


on the difference between heat and light

by malfaisant



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Dubious Consent, I mean...do you see that pairing tag?, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-07-03 16:22:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15822576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malfaisant/pseuds/malfaisant
Summary: Against the dark, Vetinari saw the Commander’s outline writhe in place, and the red symbol partially disappeared as Vimes obscured its glow beneath his hand.“Sir—”Vimes spoke through gritted teeth, though his voice was returned to normal, “—please stop baiting the godsdamned thing!”“I was only making conversation,” Vetinari replied.





	1. conduction

**Author's Note:**

> minor spoilers for _Snuff_ , although if you've read _Thud!_ you should be good to go.

Vimes woke up with his head pounding and a mouth that tasted of battery acid. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation, being the sort of thing that used to happen with distressing frequency back when his favorite hobby had been marinating his brain in alcohol, but he’s not touched a bottle in ages, having more or less made peace with his terminal sobriety since then. _Since then_ , he only ever ran into this sort of thing when someone had bashed his head in with a blunt object, perhaps a large club with a particularly ugly knot in the wood that would make quite an impression on one’s skull, possibly wielded by someone who knew how to use it.

As he blinked the stars from his vision, the dent on the back of his helmet and the itchy, drying blood matting his hair confirmed that this was, in fact, exactly what had happened. Thank the gods he’d been wearing his Commander-of-the-Watch helmet, as opposed to his-Grace-the-Duke-of-Ankh helmet, as the latter was mostly decorative and would only have served in decorating the inside of his skull with gilt and ducal plumes.

Vimes groaned and rolled onto his side on the cold stone floor. After blinking a few more times, he realised that the dark was there to stay, as opposed to being just an onlooker to his ill-advised return to consciousness. So someone got the jump on him, knocked him hard on the head, and threw him in a dungeon.

Well, let’s look on the bright side. This was hardly the first time he’d found himself in a situation like this.

“Ah, Vimes.” A familiar voice greeted him from out of the darkness, though not a comforting one by any means. Familiar was just about the politest adjective he could manage right now.

He should’ve known better than to look for bright sides in a pitch-black dungeon. There were worse people to be trapped with in a situation like this than the Patrician, probably—and again, this wasn’t the first time for even that—but while his head no longer felt like it was on the verge of spontaneously imploding under its own power, it was certainly still giving it the old college try, and was therefore too busy to come up with any viable candidates.

There was a scratching noise such as a match being lit would make, and Lord Vetinari appeared out of the gloom, bathed in the light of a small, solitary flame.

“Your lordship,” Vimes said weakly. It was either that or another emphatic groan.

Said lordship was sitting against the wall just a few feet away from him, looking unreasonably composed for someone trapped in a dungeon. “How’s your head, Commander?”

“I’d rather not discuss it, sir.”

“Of course. I understand it’s a tender subject. A sore point, if you will.”[*]

Vimes could not have stopped the groan that escaped him even at crossbow-point.[*]

“Actually, I’m inclined to agree,” replied Vetinari gravely.

Vimes allowed himself another moment of blissful indisposition, before carefully pulling himself into an upright one. Pain radiated from his head to the rest of his extremities, like a fluid taking the shape of its battered, grumpy container. He gingerly took off his helmet and laid it on the floor beside him. A quick inventory check revealed that while his captors had taken away his sword, they had made only a superficial attempt to disarm the rest of him; in addition to leaving his armor alone, he still had his collapsible cosh, the knife in his left boot, the knife in his right boot, trusty ol’ Mrs. Goodbody in his back pocket—hell, they didn’t even take the lockpick he kept inside the brim of his helmet, though he supposed he hadn’t yet seen a lock he could use it on…

Vimes turned to Vetinari inquiringly, who shrugged. “They took away my cane.”

Explained where he’d got a match from, Vimes thought. While he didn’t know how many sharp or otherwise death-inducing objects were currently cleverly hidden within Vetinari’s robes, he was certain their number would have had Sergeant Detritus resorting to counting to as high as Many, possibly even Lots.

After taking a few more moments to recover from his tragic state of verticality, Vimes scanned the cell about them. The air was cold, with the stale and faintly earthy quality of somewhere underground, though the room was a plain stone box all around. The ceilings were low, but not dwarf-height. The only exit he could see was a wooden door at the far wall, reinforced by thick iron bands.

“Any chance you have any secret passages out of this one, sir?”

“I’m afraid not. This isn’t one of mine,” Vetinari said. By the light of the match, Vimes saw that he was frowning slightly, as though annoyed with his own lack of foresight in not having secured every prison in existence to his satisfaction. Upon introspection, Vimes became briefly annoyed at himself, realising after the fact that a part of him hadn’t asked the question as a joke and had actually been hoping Vetinari somehow could've done just that.

The man wasn’t omniscient— _and you don’t want him to be, dungeon or no_ , Vimes thought as a reminder, even if they could really use some magic rats right about now, or even scorpions. Whatever vermin was willing to bring him some painkillers.

“Do you know where we are?” he asked.

“Somewhere inside the city limits, I believe, but I’m not sure where precisely. You’ve been out for about three hours, give or take.”

Vimes raised an eyebrow. That sounded almost like guesswork. “Give or take?”

“I was similarly…indisposed, shortly after yourself,” Vetinari explained.

Vimes narrowed his eyes at Vetinari, whose head looked significantly less bashed in than his own.

“They forewent the club and sedated me by means of a rag soaked with anaesthetic,” Vetinari further clarified, “though I suspect they underestimated my resistance to such things, as I woke up less than a half hour after.”

Vimes nodded, an action he immediately regretted when his head started to swim. Doubled over, he heard Vetinari’s voice from far-away, behind the loud drumming of blood in his ears, “You really shouldn’t strain yourself so, Commander. It was quite a nasty blow you got…”

The last thing Vimes could remember with any real clarity was riding Vetinari’s coach as it rattled down the cobblestones of Upper Broad Way. It had been late at night—they were on the way to the palace—Vimes was giving a briefing on the warehouse raid from earlier that day, part of the Watch’s latest campaign against the manufacture and distribution of Slab-and-other-drugs-that-start-with-an-S family of products—

Then there had been a watchman—or a man in a watchman’s garb, hailing the coach down for a traffic stop—

Guess it couldn’t be helped. The Watch was so big nowadays, too big for Vimes to know every recruit by face, and the assailants had been wearing proper uniforms and everything. Maybe it was age catching up with him, maybe it was the relative peace of recent times, or what passed for such in Ankh-Morpork anyway, but…

“We’ve both become rather careless, haven’t we, Vimes?” Vetinari voiced out loud, a faint smile on his face.

Vimes rubbed his temple with the heel of his hand as he sat back up, and asked the most pressing question on his much-rattled mind. “How are we both still alive?”

“Oh, but you must already know,” Vetinari said, still with that same, infuriating smile. “Because our captors want us to be.”

With a small wave of his hand, Vetinari put out the match, which must have been burning low enough to nearly scorch his fingertips. Once again their cell was thrown back into total darkness, but this time around, something had been roused from its usual slumber.

With a blink, Vimes’ eyes adjusted, and saw with the perfect vision of the Summoning Dark.

“If I recall correctly from your late adventures up in the Shires,” Vetinari spoke, his eyes now closed, both hands folded serenely on his lap, “the lack of light shouldn’t pose a problem for you, thanks to your souvenir from Koom Valley?”[*]

Despite that Vetinari would have no way of knowing where he was looking, Vimes had to fight the urge to direct his gaze slightly to the left and half a foot above his lordship’s head. There was no use denying it, and loathe as he was to admit, it was a profoundly pertinent talent for their current predicament.

“Sir.”

“Interesting choice of prison, isn’t it?” Vetinari waved an airy hand in Vimes’ general direction. “Given your notoriety, as well as the notoriety of the Summoning Dark among certain circles, one of which is almost certainly involved in arranging our imprisonment, why then would they put the infamous Commander Vimes in a dark cell, leaving him rather well-armed, and Lord Vetinari with him?”

“Sir?”

“Despite that I cannot see in the dark as well as you, I would like to say that I am not a little formidable myself…and yet here they put the both of us, together and unrestrained.”

“Sorry to disappoint your lordship,” Vimes said dryly, “but that door looks just as locked even in the dark, and mystic dwarf nonsense aside, I haven’t magically become able to walk through walls.”

“Nevertheless,” was all Vetinari said in reply. You didn’t argue with _nevertheless_.

The thing was, Vetinari was right. Vimes wasn’t one for tooting his own horn (or anyone else’s for that matter), but with the resources at their current disposal, their chances of escape weren’t the million-to-one odds he was expecting, and that alone made him suspicious. There was a saying here about mouths, gift-horses, and how you were specifically not to look at them, but Vimes was staring at this one straight on and saw much sharper teeth than was typically found on horses.

This smelled like another plot against Vetinari, though Vimes certainly had no shortage of his own enemies. In fact it was probably easier to list the people who didn’t want to kill one or both of them.[*] Who was it this time? Deep-downer dwarves? Foreign assassins? Some angry noble? What did anyone have to gain from throwing the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and the Commander of the Watch in a dungeon?

Gods, his head hurt. Why couldn’t _he_ have gotten a rag soaked in anaesthetic too?

For lack of anything better to do, Vimes got to his feet, albeit slowly, so as not to further exacerbate his injury.

“I would caution Your Grace against any rash action,” Vetinari said. Vimes shot a glance his way and saw that the Patrician still had his eyes closed. Bloody Assassin senses—forget being able to see in the dark, his lordship was basically a demonic entity unto himself.

“Just going to have look around, sir.” Vimes walked towards the cell door. “If we’re still in the city, my men will track us down soon.”

“I have the utmost faith in their abilities,” said Vetinari flatly.

“Suppose it’s meant to catch us off-guard, lull us into a false sense of security,” he said, for the sake of argument.

“The former would be redundant, seeing as they’ve already done that. As for the latter, it seems more to me that they’ve done all they could to rouse our suspicions.”

Vimes agreed, but he didn’t have to let Vetinari know that, although he’s sure the Patrician could hear it in his voice anyway. “What about that other thing you always harp on about, then? Hope? Maybe this is their version of a spoon and crumbling mortar.”

“This does feel like some form of comeuppance,” Vetinari said thoughtfully. “But no. I think you’d agree that neither of us have the reputations we enjoy by being inclined towards a hopeful disposition, Commander.”

Well, that was a nice way of saying they were both cynical, paranoid bastards, and famous for it too.

It hardly needed to be said—if their attackers were smart enough to capture them, they wouldn’t suddenly turn around and become stupid enough to underestimate them after. Still, almost certain likelihood of a trap or not, they didn’t exactly have a lot of other options. That Vetinari was allowing him to explore the cell, despite having reached the conclusions they did, said as much.

Vimes rubbed the inside of his wrist, over the raised scar. It wasn’t glowing red, as it sometimes did, but the longer he stayed in the dark, the stronger it became…

 _Focus_. He turned his full attention to the door, which looked as sturdy as ever, if not particularly menacing. [*] Perhaps they were just meant to starve to death, or suffocate, and their corpses to be paraded around afterwards? But surely they would’ve just killed them when they were unconscious then? What were their captors hoping to accomplish by keeping them alive?

Probably best not to stick around to find out. Vimes ran his hands over the surface of the door, trying to see if there was a weak spot in the hinges, or some sort of give in the wood—

“Ow!”

He pulled his hand back. There was a bright red cut across his palm, where he’d gashed his hand on a nail, or was it a rivet—

*

_Somewhere in the rain, in the city of endless night, the entity stirred._

_It slithered through the familiar mist-shrouded streets and alleys, its tail gliding on the cobbles. The city was its prison, but the city was also its home, because it belonged here. Its host was not a friend but a brother, because the dark attracted darkness, the better to ward off light._

_Yet the habits of millennia did not change so easily, and now something was calling to it, like the tolling of a silver bell._

_It felt…hunger, ancient and ravenous. Something called to the Summoning Dark—old hatreds and timeworn grudges, a thousand curses, a thousand broken oaths, sins that would not be forgotten and would never be forgiven. Before the light there was darkness, and since the dawn of history it had seen the first injustice, felt the first betrayal, suffered every death of brother killing brother. It knew the wrath of all those who had been forced to cower in the dark, those who had been lied to, those who had been stolen from, because it was wrath itself._

_The watchman fell to his knees, writhing in agony. Something burned beneath his skin, igniting his nerves, boiling the blood in his veins and the marrow in his bones. It burned and burned, like a scorching, blistering fever, a black fire blooming in the dark._

_Heat, incalescent, and without light._

*

“Vimes!”

Vetinari opened his eyes and shot up to his feet at the loud thud of a body hitting the floor. From the sound of his pained, heavy breathing, the Commander was still alive, but in what condition Vetinari couldn’t say. After a moment of acclimation, his eyes realised they were no longer in total darkness—there was a dim glow from the door, runes etched in blue light on the wood as ink on a piece of paper.

Against the door, he saw the dark outline of Vimes, huddled in a crumpled heap on the ground. The runes weren’t bright enough that Vetinari could see his face, but he could smell the faint tang of blood and cold sweat in the air easily enough.

He took a few brisk steps towards Vimes, but then there was a jarring clang of metal on stone, and the dark figure jerked as if turning to face him, screaming, _“Don’t come any closer!”_

The voice stopped Vetinari in his tracks. It was Vimes’ voice, but not only. A cacophony of voices had spoken the words with him, discordant layers of noise that called to mind the crash and cry of torrential rain, as if a storm were speaking through him.

Standing perfectly still, Vetinari watched as the runes on the door slowly faded back to nothing, taking with them their faint light. High old dwarfish, if he wasn’t mistaken[*], though he could only guess at their meaning. He had studied languages at the Guild, but this was something else entirely. _This_ was magic.

The dim blue glow receded, and in its absence the only other source of illumination in the room stood out starkly in the dark—on Vimes’ arm, shining bright crimson red, was a strange symbol of a floating eye with a tail.

_The dark, in the dark, like a star in chains._

Vetinari had seen it before, of course. He could hardly fail to notice the thin white scar on Vimes’ wrist, present in every salute the Commander had given since his return from Koom Valley. He had even seen it as it was now, shining like blood, though only a handful of times, when Vimes’ emotions had been running at their highest—a stab of rage, or anger tightly reined. He was not a little curious if Vimes had noticed this, and if so, what must he think of having this nearly literal heart upon his sleeve.[*]

Regardless, Vimes had never made any attempts to hide the sigil of the Summoning Dark, or really done anything to acknowledge it at all, as if he could deny its existence simply by pretending it didn’t exist[*], despite that the proof of it was _carved_ into his skin. Vetinari would admit he found it endearing, if only for its pure, bullish _Vimesness,_ and in his opinion the man had earned it. It was that same sheer force of will that had tamped the entity into submission, after all.

The Summoning Dark had destroyed all its previous hosts, Mustrum had explained to him. The grags all agreed it should have consumed Sam Vimes’ soul. But then again, none of them knew Vimes like he did, or at least not well enough to have known that it was a far more even contest than any of them believed.

Now, however…

Vetinari risked closing his eyes but for a second; the afterimage of the runes on the door shone brightly in his mind. So, one of their enemies was trying to rig the contest in the dark’s favor. How would an ancient, powerful, quasidemonic _thing_ of pure vengeance fare against Sam Vimes, if they gave it an advantage?

And to what end?

Ah.

There would be a certain, undeniable poetry, to have the Patrician killed by his own dog.

Revenge, then, of a decidedly personal nature. Someone for whom it would not be enough to merely kill the Patrician, though that only narrowed down the list of suspects so much. But revenge was a slightly trickier motive to neutralise than ambition or greed. Self-interested men had leverage built right into them, having already made the mistake of telling Vetinari what it was they cared about. Those with a grudge, on the other hand, were rarely as rational. They were almost as bad as the Heroes and the ones with righteous causes.

So, send Samuel Vimes into a berserker rage and trap him in a cage with Vetinari. One would kill the other, or perhaps they could kill each other. Any of these outcomes should be perfectly acceptable. It was the message that was important.

What would he have the headlines say, then? “ _Patrician murdered by the Commander of the Watch!_ ”, or would Vetinari cut off his own right hand to save himself? In one trouser leg, Sam Vimes would be disgraced and tried for treason: _seems like Ol’ Stoneface couldn’t help himself after all_ , the crowd would whisper at his hanging, _even if he did have settle for the next best thing to a king_. Because no doubt the man would plead guilty to the charge, arresting himself if none of his men would dare to. In another, Lord Vetinari would be made vulnerable, having been forced to sacrifice his most valuable chess piece, and many would start to see opportunity where there were previously none, because previously they hadn’t dared to look. In yet another, two of the pillars of Ankh-Morpork would be destroyed in one strike, and the city would fall into chaos.

That Vimes ended up dead in all of these trouser legs was almost certainly not an accident. The architect of this would-be revenge was someone that the good Commander had pissed off as well, not that this significantly narrowed down the list either. It might have even done the exact opposite.

Vetinari could hear Vimes’ harsh breathing in the dark, a noise like the pained inhale and exhale of a thousand cigars suddenly catching up in one go. Divorced from anything Vetinari’s eyes could see except for the bright red sigil, it almost seemed as if the shallow, panting breaths were being made by the symbol itself.

The sign was not the thing it signified, unless the sign became more than a sign. Unless the symbol was something people believed in so deeply, so fervently, enough that it was, in every way that mattered, real to them. Then the symbol was not the thing itself, until it was.

Suddenly the breathing stopped, only to be replaced by the rasping whisper of a voice that did not _feel_ entirely human. “ _Kill him_ ,” it said. “ _Kill him kill him kill him kill_ —”

“Commander Vimes,” Vetinari said, and sensed something turn to look in his direction.

 _“Command,”_ the creature repeated, _“but you are not in command…kill, kill, must kill. Kill you, yes?”_

Vetinari had only ever seen the symbol, but he had never met the thing itself. And because the Patrician believed in proper introductions, he said, “May I ask with whom I am speaking?”

 _“You know me,”_ it hissed, the syllables unfurling slowly, coiling like smoke. _“I am the darkness he locks away.”_

“But not the only one, I believe?” he replied calmly; if it could be reasoned with, then it was already in mortal danger. “His Grace is full of demons, after all. I would have to ask you to be more specific.”

The creature paused, and if dark silence could sound unsure it was certainly the case here, so Vetinari continued. “ _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes,_ correct _?_ I have been watching him for a long time now.”

 _“I am the Summoning Dark,_ ” it answered, prideful and haughty. Vetinari didn’t think he only imagined the twitch of a tail. _“Who are you?”_

“I am the Patrician.”

 _“The Patrician! Tyrant! Ruler of the city, his ruler, his…his master?”_ it said, somewhat curiously.

It was Vetinari’s turn to pause. “Yes.”

The red sigil flared, like an ember caught by a sudden gust of wind. _“If I control you, then I control him?”_

Vetinari smiled, the flash of teeth a cautionary warning. “I would advise against it.”

The creature laughed, a sinister rasp that quickly devolved into a feral growl. Against the dark, Vetinari saw the Commander’s outline writhe in place, and the red symbol partially disappeared as Vimes obscured its glow beneath his hand.

 _“Sir—”_ Vimes spoke through gritted teeth, though his voice was returned to normal, “—stop baiting the godsdamned thing!”

“I was only making conversation,” Vetinari replied.

“I don’t know how much longer I can control it,” Vimes said desperately. “Vetinari, it’s going mad from the magic, you have to—” he cut off with a groan “— _gods, I want to rip you apart with my bare hands_ —”

“That’s hardly anything out of the ordinary—”

 _“I’m serious, you arrogant bastard!”_ Vimes yelled.

Madness. Anger, hatred, and wrath. “Is it possible to find another outlet for it?” Vetinari asked.

There was a noise like a choked back sob. “I can’t—you have to ki—”

“I will not kill you, Vimes,” Vetinari cut him off, in a voice that made it clear this was an order, “and you will not kill me either.”

But for an order to be followed, there must be a path to follow it, even if he must make one himself. From the anguished state of Vimes’ pleas, Vetinari had to think fast and act even faster if they were to avoid any killing. He could feel the foundations shaking beneath his feet, the chains rattling, a beast whining to feed—a primordial entity of darkness, driven forward by savage need, and all Vimes had to hold it back was his own willpower. Two base instincts pulling at opposite directions with the rope between them quickly fraying, at its limit. What choice could he give to a beast if not to fight nor to flee?

The Patrician wasn’t fond of guesswork, which was sloppy and imprecise by definition, and so avoided it when he could, opting instead for stacking the odds and knowing all the cards on the table, usually by being the one who dealt them. But in the running of a city as absurd as Ankh-Morpork, sometimes a tyrant had no other option _but_ to guess. You couldn’t plan for everything, and so sometimes taking a chance was necessary.

It should concern him more, how at the heart of most these gambles was the belief that Sam Vimes will do the impossible. Past performance was no guarantee of future results, after all, and it was possible that one day it would prove to be a fatal mistake, but apparently even Havelock Vetinari had his vices.

Anger, hatred, and wrath. All dangerous emotions for a man who felt things too much, felt things too wholeheartedly, but perhaps they might be redirected, re-purposed—flip a coin, spin the wheel, and you might get anger, or you might get passion, might get love instead of hatred, might get lust instead of wrath. Occasionally, the Patrician gambled.

With light, careful steps, Vetinari approached Vimes like a man trespassing upon property affixed with a _BEWARE OF DOG_ sign and was unsure how long the tether was, because there was no sense in wasting a metaphor within such easy reach.

He knelt in front of Vimes, who tried to crawl backwards away from him, only to find that his back had reached the door.

Slowly, Vetinari reached out and wrapped his hand around Vimes’ wrist, and with that same painful deliberation, brought the bright red scar up to his lips.

*

_Every mind the Summoning Dark had ever inhabited was a universe unto itself, each one a distinct little pocket of existence. Infinite, but small, in the way that partitions of infinity could be swallowed by greater infinities. This was a contradiction, but logically an internally consistent one.Let the universe be the set of all infinite sets that do not shave themselves. [*]_

_In other words, mortals led such small, ephemeral lives, that it only made sense for their minds to be the same. It was the only way they could make sense of such a vast, uncaring universe._

_The entity curled its tail into a figure eight._

_And so one mind might have been a house with no walls, or a ship upon an endless ocean. Infinite but partitioned. The act of self-determination ultimately required a projection of the self, and it was only in these metaphysical places that the Summoning Dark could exist. Superstition made flesh, figuratively speaking, to inhabit a place that was real and not real._

_The watchman's mind was a city of dark and unceasing rain, every entrance guarded, every exit fortified. Every step the creature took hounded by a guarding dark. It wasn’t like any mind the entity had ever encountered before. It was home. It was a prison. The habits of millennia were difficult to break._

_And then the bells had started ringing, and suddenly every gate in the city was opening and closing. If it could find one that held ajar long enough, it could make a run for it, away from the one that watched. There was a thunderous crash as one of the metal gates slammed open, and the Summoning Dark darted forward—_

_—and found itself in a city nearly the twin of the one it had just left, except it was all bright and cold and crystalline sharp. It recognised all the streets and buildings, from the highest tower to the lowest alleyway, but in place of brick and mortar, all of it was built out of glass of varying translucencies. Walls it could see through and walls it could not, windows rimed with frost and doors made out of fog, crystal houses and carnival reflections. A city that was not a city at all, but a labyrinth of facing mirrors._

_Should the light hit a surface of the city at just the right parabolic angle, the beam could burn right through you._

*

In the pitch black of their dungeon prison, Vimes could see in the dark so clearly that everything shone, as if everything were made out of starlight.

And because he could see in the dark, Vimes saw every step Vetinari took towards him with mounting horror. He had warned the man away, hadn’t he? As the magic coursed through his veins like an electric shock, he had warned him. And now it was coursing through him still, had turned the dark into a physical, tangible presence, roiling beneath his skin like a turbulent sea. His hands trembled violently as he undid the fastenings of his breastplate, which fell to the ground with a hollow clatter, something, _anything_ that would make it easier to breathe—

Then he felt it use his mouth, speak with his voice, but Vimes had managed to wrench control back with monumental effort, just to tell Vetinari to stay away.

_You’ve always said that if anyone were to kill him, it ought to be you..._

_NO! I don’t want to kill him, manipulative bastard or not! Not him, never him—_

But already Vetinari was kneeling in front of him, and with his perfect vision, Vimes saw the Patrician taking his wrist and slowly bringing up the sigil to his lips. _What in Blind Io’s name was Vetinari doing?_

A stab of sensation shot up his arm where Vetinari’s mouth touched his skin, so intense that it should’ve been pain, except it wasn’t, or at least not only. His other hand shot forward and grabbed Vetinari by his collar, but instead of pushing him away as he had meant to do, Vimes pulled him forward, until their faces were bare inches apart.

This close, Vimes could hear Vetinari’s soft, panting breaths, mostly drowned out by his own louder ones. With his other hand still around Vimes’ wrist, Vetinari brought up his long, slender fingers to his own mouth, his lips parted slightly, tracing where the mark had touched.

Vimes growled, and launched forward, straddling Vetinari beneath him. He pinned Vetinari’s hands on either side of his head, the thin, bony wrists feeling unconscionably fragile in his grip. He must be holding them hard enough to bruise, but Vetinari did not push him off or try to pull himself free, and simply stared up at Vimes with those cold, blue eyes.

For all his outward composure, Vimes knew that Vetinari was not unaffected by all this. Vimes had felt it for the briefest moment, the brush of another mind against his, and he knew better than anyone the intrusive presence of the Summoning Dark, how it felt to have its unrelenting gaze upon you, to have its coiling tendril latch around a part of you and _squeeze_.

“I’m sorry, Sam—” Vetinari said breathlessly, “This was the only way I could think to distract it.”

_“Why didn’t you stay away?!”_

“You cannot hold it off alone.” Vetinari’s eyes remained fixed on his, hard as ice. “I will not have it tear apart something that belongs to _me_.”

Vimes growled again, and leaned in close, his teeth bared against Vetinari’s neck. His blood pounded so loudly in his ears it was almost deafening.

“I can’t—it wants me to hurt you, wants to kill you, wants—”

Vetinari closed his eyes and tilted his head back, exposing the tall column of his throat. “It _wants._ We will give it something else.”

 

 

* * *

* The Patrician is engaging in a _pune_ , or a play on words.

* As a father (both literally and in the metaphorical sense, as evidenced by such phrases like “a father to his men” and “he just _looks_ like someone’s dad, okay”), Vimes was quite practised in the weaponised deployment of punes, but was not as adept at defending against them, particularly in instances of ambush or surprise attacks.

* Having served under Vetinari for well over a decade now, while questions such as _“How the hell does he know about that?”_ and _“I’m pretty sure I never bloody told him”_ did run through Vimes’ mind, they did so only very briefly, before being discarded as eminently silly questions. This was _Vetinari_.

* The list of people who actually _could_ , on the other hand, could be counted on said hand.

* One could even say that the door was almost suspiciously sensible, as if its builder had been told to make a door that held and _absolutely nothing else_ , you hear? No frills or foreboding eldritchness, he’d been told. This is just a perfectly normal door.

* He wasn’t.

* Given the number of gods, deities, and beings of higher planes of existence in general that presided over the Disc, it was difficult to say which of them governed the fate of one Samuel Vimes, or more to the point if any of them actually dared to. If any such being or beings exist, Havelock Vetinari would like to shake their hand (or the equivalent appendage) in recognition of their bravery, as well as for their dedication to an almost painful literality of metaphor regarding one Samuel Vimes.

* The Patrician privately conceded that, well, you must admit that if anyone could…

* As an ancient, quasidemonic, _hyperdimensional_ entity of pure vengeance, it was possible that the Summoning Dark was familiar with what Roundworld mathematicians referred to as axiomatic set theory, but being something of a paradox in itself, it perhaps felt a sort of kinship to the paradox of the barber that shaves all those, and those only, who do not shave themselves. It is, after all, comfortably close to another infinitely recursive question involving watchmen and those who watched them.


	2. convection

By Vetinari’s internal timekeeping, around twelve hours had passed by the time Sergeant Angua and her band of watchmen found them. There was a dull, solid thud against the door, and then another, and then another, before the lock and the hinges finally gave way to the battering ram, and the door fell forward to the floor with a wooden crash.

“Commander Vimes?” she called out upon entering the room, a cloud of dust and the light of a half-dozen torches filtering in behind her. “Your lordship?”

“We’re here, Sergeant,” Vimes answered, his voice cracking hoarsely. “Good job finding us.”

The sergeant gave a smart salute. “Yessir. Glad to have found you both in good health, sirs.”

Lord Vetinari stepped forward and out of the shadows, a few feet behind Vimes.

“Commendable work from Ankh-Morpork’s finest, as always,” he said with an honest smile. He hadn’t been expecting them for another three hours.

Sergeant Angua stared at her Commander and her Patrician, a look of confusion clouding her face, before comprehension dawned. Vimes and Vetinari had fixed themselves up as best they could in the time that had passed, and the wear and tear of their clothes were easily attributable to some struggle during their abduction, but there was unfortunately nothing to be done about a werewolf’s sense of smell. In testament to her professionalism, the sergeant only clicked her heels together and saluted him, and didn’t utter a word as she marched stiffly out of the room, her expression wooden enough to make her mentor proud.

Their prison, it soon turned out, was a recently refurbished remnant of an old fort in the hubward outskirts of the city, buried some several layers of old Ankh-Morpork beneath an unused distillery. Sergeant Angua was able to track them from the scene of their abandoned coach, though the kidnappers had laid several false trails to confuse the Watch, this last one being the third search party attempted.

“It’s odd, Commander,” she said as she walked alongside Vimes through the leaky tunnels. “No one came forward to take credit or make any demands for ransom, but the trails were clearly marked, with just enough clues for us to follow. We had to take it slow, in case any of them were traps.”

“They were meant to buy time,” Vimes answered, sounding rather miserable for a man who had just been rescued. “The kidnappers wanted us found.”

Sergeant Angua frowned, her brows furrowed in confusion. “Sir?”

“Not too soon, mind you, but eventually, and certainly not as…intact,” he said absently, staring straight ahead. “Were you able to identify any of the assailants?”

“Sorry, sir. Forensics has some potential leads, but no solid suspects just yet.”

“Thank you, sergeant. I’d like your full report on my desk first thing tomorrow morning.”

Their party soon reached the surface, Commander Vimes and Sergeant Angua in the lead, followed by the Patrician and the rest of their watch escort. Vetinari squinted his eyes against the glare of the mid-afternoon sun as they stepped out into the street, where a clerk was already waiting alongside a solid black coach.

The clerk handed him a cane, and opened the coach door with a small bow. Vetinari entered the coach, but held out his cane to hold the door ajar.

“Commander,” he called out, and saw Vimes freeze mid-step on his way to the Watch coach, before slowly turning about to face him.

“Sir?”

“I believe a quick briefing at the palace is in order,” he said.

“I was hoping to go to the Yard, sir, get a proper start on the investigation,” Vimes tried, rather half-heartedly, his expression already one of gloomy resignation.

“After your recent ordeal, I don’t think anyone will begrudge your taking the rest of the day off, Commander.”

“Sergeant Angua said that Forensics might have some promising leads—”

“Get in the coach, Vimes.”

Vimes got in the coach.

The ride to the palace passed in total silence. Vetinari spent the journey studying the man sitting across from him, who in turn spent the whole ride determinedly ignoring this and staring out the window. Not so many hours ago, they were sitting in an identical coach on their way to the palace in nearly the exact same configuration, but all manner of irrevocable things had taken place since then, so far past lines Vetinari never meant to cross that they weren’t even blips on the horizon. What change a day could bring.

But such were the consequences of the drastic measures he took. He would salvage what he could of their relationship, and if it turned out there wasn’t anything left to salvage…well, he would still take it over all the other alternatives.

Drumknott was ready for them by the time the coach pulled up to the palace gates. Vetinari left the Commander in his care, to take him to one of the rooms so he could clean up properly, and made his way to his own bedroom to do the same. With a shower, a fresh set of black robes, and a cup of tea, not a half hour later saw the Patrician sitting back at his desk, going through the clacks that had come in during his brief absence, as if nothing at all had happened. There were appearances to be maintained.

He looked up at the clock, and after a sufficient amount of time had passed, bid someone to come in.

Vimes entered his office, his movements stiff and on edge. Shaving didn’t do much to allay the hunted look on his face, but at least the grime and blood had been washed away. There were fresh bandages around his head and right hand, set by one of the palace physicians.

“Thank you for taking the time to see me, Your Grace.”

Vimes nodded curtly. “Sir.”

“I know you must be eager to go home to your family,” the flash of panic on Vimes’ face confirmed this to be the barefaced lie Vetinari had suspected, “so I will keep this brief. About the incident in the dungeon—”

“Do we really have to talk about it,” Vimes snapped, before adding as an afterthought, “sir?”

“I’m afraid we must, Commander. If nothing else, I’d like for us to retain a functional working relationship,” Vetinari said, before turning his gaze down to the papers on his desk and continuing in a softer voice, “but I would also understand if even that should be impossible.”

“Sir?”

“I will not, of course, attempt to strip you of any of your ranks or titles. Your command is yours, as it has always been. If you choose to stay at your post, you will unfortunately still have to attend the city council meetings, but that should be all your obligations accounted for after you delegate Watch responsibilities to Captain Carrot—”

“ _Sir_?” By now, Vimes was sounding well and truly alarmed.

Vetinari looked up and met his eyes. “Yes, Commander?”

“What the hell are you telling me?”

The Patrician gave a small, sad smile. “I am a tyrant, Vimes, but I try not to be a cruel one. I’m telling you that beyond this meeting, you will not have to suffer my presence beyond what you would care to.”

“B—but why?”

“My recent trespass upon your person is not easily forgivable, if it can be forgiven at all. It is only right, therefore, that you establish whatever boundaries you deem necessary to move forward,” he said mechanically. “My one request is that you would let me know of your decision—if not for me, then for the city.”

“I still don’t understand,” Vimes replied, his hands shaking slightly, balled to fists at his sides.

“You are not an insignificant part of my plans for this city, Your Grace.” Vetinari sat back in his chair, his hands linked neatly on his lap. “In fact, I have almost certainly come to depend on you far too much. If this has to change, I should like to know now, so that I may start to account for it.”

This pronouncement was met with silence for several moments. Vimes opened his mouth a few times for a number of false starts, but bewilderment had left the Commander tongue-tied, his expression twisted in ill-concealed distress.

But Vetinari had said all he needed to say, and only waited patiently for Vimes’ reply.

Vimes closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re saying that—that—so basically you want me to call the shots for this?” he asked finally. “Us?”

Vetinari nodded.

The Commander started to pace back and forth several steps, nervous, fidgeting, one hand tearing at his hair. “Whatever I want, moving forward? If I wanted to just never speak to you again, or bugger off to Quirm and take a post there, you’d let me? Leave me alone?”

“Yes,” Vetinari said.

Vimes stopped pacing. “Then ignore it,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” Vetinari replied, eyes widening slightly in genuine surprise.

Vimes turned to face him, his expression resolute. “Ignore it. We move on like nothing happened. Nothing changes between us and we continue on as before.”

Vetinari frowned, bringing a hand up to his chin. “I’m not so sure that would be an advisable course of action, Your Grace—”

But Vimes cut Vetinari off, slamming a hand flat on the desk and jabbing a finger in his direction. “Your lordship told me to decide. I’ve decided nothing happened, and we never talk about it ever again.”

In response, the Patrician only stared at Vimes wordlessly, for quite a stretch of time that Vimes eventually remembered himself enough to flinch. He took a step back and retracted the offending extremities, an expression much like that of a man who was furiously trying not to think of scorpion pits passing his face.[*] Vetinari let the silence stretch on for a while longer after that, but instead of avoiding his eyes and staring over his shoulder as he was usually wont to do in such situations, Vimes held his gaze, his mouth a thin, grim line.

“Very well,” Vetinari finally said. “If that is how you wish to proceed.”

“It is.”

“Am I given to understand that ‘nothing happened’ only in a very particular sense?” he asked. “Or did you also want me to let slide the fact that several conspirators had kidnapped the Patrician and the Commander of the Watch in what was certainly a plot against the city?”

“What? _No!_ Of course I still want to catch the bastards who did this,” Vimes snarled.

“Then we have an agreement. Please do forward a copy of Sergeant Angua’s report on this ongoing investigation.”

“Yessir.”

“The palace will pursue its own inquiries, but I will make certain to let the Watch know of any leads we uncover,” Vetinari said, steepling his fingers together. He paused for a moment more, and finally let his gaze flicker down to the tattoo on Vimes’ wrist, which had been glowing a bright, angry red, ever since Vimes had given his answer.

His eyes darted back up. “Should I be concerned, Vimes?”

“No, sir,” Vimes replied, with not even half a glance to look down at the mark of the Summoning Dark.

“Very well,” Vetinari said. “Then don’t let me detain you, Commander.”

Vimes saluted, and left the office as fast as he could. There was not even the customary thump of a fist hitting the plaster right outside his office door.

After Vimes had gone, Lord Vetinari sat at his desk for a while, and stared at the ceiling with a blank expression.

*

_“It wants,” Vetinari said, tilting his head back. “We will give it something else.”_

_Vimes sank his teeth into Vetinari’s neck._

_In what could only have been retaliation, Vetinari shifted his leg beneath Vimes, bringing a thigh flush against his groin and making Vimes brutally aware for the first time of his fierce arousal. The alchemists had always posited that the transmutation of one thing into something else was easiest between objects of similar properties. At some point, without his noticing, the bloodlust that was fogging his brain had shifted and broken down into its base components._

_Vimes could taste the thin sheen of sweat on Vetinari’s skin, feel the beat of his pulse on his tongue. He sucked a mark onto the side of Vetinari’s neck, at the hollow juncture just beneath the corner of his jaw, and was rewarded by an almost inaudible moan. His hands tore at the high collar, tearing off the buttons in his haste to uncover more skin, more chances to elicit those noises from the man underneath him._

_It was too late to protest that this was not what he wanted—Vimes was more turned on that he could ever remember being his entire life. But left unchanged and wholly intact was the fact that this was not how he had ever wanted it._

_Vetinari tangled his long fingers in Vimes’ hair, and grabbed a fistful to pull Vimes’ head back so that he could crush their mouths together. The kiss was wild and graceless, less like a kiss and more as if they were both trying to devour each other. With his idle hand Vetinari took over Vimes’ fumbling efforts and undid the rest of the long line of buttons on the front of his robe, because even in this it seemed that the Patrician still retained his control. With that same pragmatic facility, he undid Vimes’ jacket and shirt, and brushed a hand on his exposed chest, before following the thick line of hair downwards with unmistakable intention, all as he kept kissing Vimes to within half an inch of his life._

_With sudden, anguished terror, Vimes did not know whether it came from the dark or himself, but he thought desperately that he would give anything to break it, for that fine control to shatter and splinter, for the shards to cut and bury themselves into his skin._

_Vimes broke the kiss with a snarl. He placed his hand underneath Vetinari’s waist, cupping the small of his back, and pulled him forward to grind their hips together._

_He rutted against Vetinari, the friction rough and teasing and not nearly enough, with so many troublesome layers of clothes still between them. He slipped a hand inside Vetinari’s shirt, the cut on his palm smearing blood everywhere he touched. The Patrician felt warm and feverish against him, something that even now Vimes was noting with surprise. Despite having seen the man poisoned, shot, and bleeding, Vimes supposed a part of him had never really fully dismissed the rumours that Lord Vetinari was a member of the undead, cold and unfeeling, but now that question had been definitively put to rest. From the indentation of each rib,the whip-sharp cords of wiry, toned muscle [*], his increasingly shallow breathing, Vetinari was unmistakably alive and strikingly human._

Curious _, that’s what it was—the Summoning Dark was curious, and wanted to explore more. Vimes pressed hungry, open-mouthed kisses along Vetinari’s jaw and throat, against the jut of his collarbone, on his sternum and across the concave plane of his stomach, mapping a downward path with blood and bruises. He reached the band of his trousers, and with a shameless lack of hesitation, Vimes pulled out Vetinari’s cock and took it greedily into his mouth, and was rewarded once again by one of those soft, barely-there moans._

_He’d give anything to break that control, for it to shatter and splinter, and so it broke, and broke, and kept on breaking—_

*

Through the frantic early evening bustle of the Watch House on Pseudopolis Yard, the sound of breaking ceramic rang out, followed shortly by a disgruntled murmur of “Ah, _fuck_.”

Vimes glared over the side of his desk, where he’d accidentally knocked his mug of lukewarm coffee onto the floor.

“Let me get that for you, sir,” came a voice from the doorway. Inspector Pessimal shuffled into his office and set a pile of paperwork on the teetering _In_ tray of Vimes’ desk, before pulling out a small broom and dustpan seemingly out of thin air. Vimes just chalked it up to whatever training he must have underwent for his previous position, and mumbled his thanks.[*]

“You’re very welcome, Commander,” said the Inspector, brushing the broken shards into his dustpan. He then procured a pristine white handkerchief to wipe the spilled coffee. “Would you like me to bring you another cup?”

“Much appreciated, Inspector,” Vimes replied absently, and turned back to the report he’d been reading.

It was the latest report from Forensics, concerning the most recent developments on the case of the Patrician’s kidnapping. Two weeks had passed since the incident, and the only progress they had made since then was the capture of the men that assaulted the coach. Angua had positively identified them with smells from the crime scene, and Littlebottom had confirmed the match with boot-print sizes and the stolen uniforms from the Watch’s inventory—all of which would’ve have been rather impressive detective work, had the men not already been a pair of corpses at the time of their arrest, after having been dumped unceremoniously in front of the Dimwell Street Watch House.

Standard arsenic poisoning, Littlebottom's report had said, complete with a receipt from the Assassins’ Guild. Following the failed attempt on the Patrician’s life, it seemed as though the mastermind of the kidnapping was now covering their tracks by soliciting the discreet services of the Guild, meaning Vimes wasn’t getting a name anytime soon. Even if he were to march to the guildhall with a squadron of officers, Sergeant Detritus and the Piecemaker at the front, the only answer he’d get out of Downey was that it was _all perfectly legal,_ and he would be right. In fact, the inhumation of a pair of common criminals probably counted as a public service.

Gods, Vimes hated Assassins.

But his lordship wouldn’t want the Watch kicking up trouble with the Guild, and this was just the clean-up anyway. The Assassins had nothing to do with the actual plot—they _liked_ having Vetinari around and in charge, more than just about anyone. [*]

The shadows at his feet shifted, despite that Vimes hadn’t moved a muscle.

 _Yes,_ a familiar voice whispered, _we like having him around, too._

Vimes rubbed at his eyes irritably, and tossed the report on the desk. He pushed back his seat and walked over to the window, cigar in hand.

If Vimes were to close his eyes now, he knew the floating eye with a tail would be there, staring back at him expectantly.

Ever since the time in the dungeon, as if the magic had pulled it out of dormancy, the Summoning Dark was now a near-constant companion, its previous complacency replaced by a certain, implacable restlessness. And so, ever since the time in the dungeon, Vimes had barely slept. He didn’t eat much. He’d taken up smoking again, much to Sybil’s quiet disapproval. With the creature constantly nipping at his heels, Vimes was grumpier, jumpier, and in general running on a shorter fuse than before, which hadn’t exactly been the longest fuse to begin with. Burying himself in work only compounded his frustration, when every lead on the case kept turning up with dead-ends.

In fact, the only time the entity seemed to settle was during his daily briefings at the palace, something that Vimes was determined not to think about too closely. Perhaps he ought’ve taken Vetinari up on that offer to limit their contact when he had the chance, but Vimes only had to think about this option before he would feel something _bristle_ inside him, a slithering thing with scales and teeth and claws, making his skin crawl.

Curse the dwarves and their bloody superstitions!

With another muttered swear, Vimes threw the half-smoked cigar out the window and stomped back to his desk.

*

_The Summoning Dark poked at his mind curiously, and Vetinari cursed under his breath._

_He felt its heavy presence there, rummaging around his head carelessly, turning over thoughts and secrets with all the delicacy of a child playing with an interesting new toy._ This _was the entity Vimes had been carrying around with him all this time? If Vetinari had not already run out of medals or titles to give him, it would’ve been his first course of action to do so once they’ve escaped this place._

_And then there was Vimes himself, carrying out a furious, unrelenting assault on all his other senses. Vetinari shivered under his ministrations, at the rough, calloused touch of those hands on his chest, the coarse burn of day-old stubble on his skin, leaving an angry trail of red. Vimes took his cock in his mouth and began to suck him with single-minded focus, and Vetinari’s back arched off the ground, his hand darting forward in the dark, searching for any purchase, tangling itself in Vimes’ hair. He pulled hard, trying to get the Commander to slow down for just a moment, but Vimes would not be deterred. He swallowed Vetinari into his mouth again and again, the head of his cock hitting the back of Vimes’ throat with each thrust._

_Intimacy without gentleness, savage and possessive. Vimes placed a hand on Vetinari’s hip and pinned him down, so that Vetinari could not even fuck that mouth as he wanted to. He was to stay still, thighs splayed wide apart, writhing in place as he suffered Vimes’ attentions. Vimes wrapped his lips around the head of his cock, laved his tongue under the crown, before taking him in again, swallowing down to the root. Vetinari covered his mouth as a loud moan escaped, full and unrestrained, forcibly wrenched from some deeply buried part of him._

_Which of course, the Patrician thought,while also internally swearing the vilest string of expletives he could muster [*], was when the Commander decided to take Vetinari’s cock out of his mouth. Vimes was certainly too far gone to tease, but he was doing a _spectacular _job of it regardless._

_But before he could make some smart comment about it, Vimes tore the hand he had over his mouth away and kissed him furiously, making Vetinari taste himself on his tongue._

_Vimes pulled away after a breathless few seconds, and spoke against Vetinari’s mouth. “_ Mine _,” he said, “those noises are mine.”_

_For a moment, Vetinari could only blink, and then a laugh escaped him too, darting out before he could catch and inhume it. With both hands on the back of his neck, he pulled Vimes down and moaned as deeply as he could into another kiss._

_And finally, finally, Vimes pulled out his own cock and began to stroke them both in his hand. Vetinari thrust forward into his tight grip, and let every noise that would escape his lips and into Vimes’ mouth, because he was rarely able to deny Sam Vimes anything for very long. They rutted together as one, until Vetinari’s eyes fluttered shut, his nails digging crescents into Vimes’ neck, and orgasm crashed over them both._

*

Vimes had startled, the first time he saw the dark move of its own accord.

It had been the morning after their escape from the dungeon. Sybil had embraced him tightly the night of his return, and received his monotone account of the events calmly, thoughtfully, with not a hint of censure in her kind, kind eyes. After Vimes had finished, in place of the reproach he’d been expecting, Sybil merely sat her husband down on the couch and placed young Sam on his lap for their six o’clock read. And later that same night as they tucked in for bed, she had lit a candle on their bedside table, long enough to burn through the night.

“I don’t mind the light,” she said, and Vimes collapsed in her arms gratefully, falling into a dreamless sleep.

When Vimes woke up, the candle was out, but there was the faintest hint of dawn outside the bedroom windows. It was earlier than when he usually woke up, but he got out of bed anyway, gently untangling himself from his still-sleeping wife, and headed to the bathroom for a shave.

The basin filled with water as he turned on the tap. Vimes washed his face, brushed the lather on, and brought the razor up to his cheek in front of the mirror, his other hand pulling the skin taut.

In the mirror, his own face smiled at him, its eyes gleaming darkly, the whites flooded oil-slick black.

Vimes’ hand slipped, nicking himself with the razor, and the blade dropped to the sink with a clatter.

 _“Nasty cut you have there, Mister Policeman,”_ it said, and as Vimes watched, his own reflection traced his middle and index finger along the cut, and rubbed its bloodstained fingertips together.

Vimes splashed water on his face to wash away the blood and lather, but when he looked up, his reflection was still smiling at him without his consent.

_“Still here, Mister Vimes.”_

Vimes punched the mirror.

The mirror cracked, fissures spreading outward like a cobweb from the point of impact, which was smeared with red where the shards had cut his knuckles. But at least his reflection had returned to normal, the broken mirror now properly showing his wide, furious eyes, his teeth bared in a snarl.

Except now, it also showed a visitor, standing over his shoulder. Tall, clad in dusty black, and meeting Vimes’ eyes in the mirror, was the Patrician.

Vimes knew that if he were to turn around now, there would be no one there, but couldn’t resist looking behind him anyway. As expected, he was alone in the bathroom, but Vetinari’s reflection did not so much as flicker as he turned about to face it again.

“Well, that’s one way to drive me mad,” Vimes muttered, glaring as he pressed a towel to the cut on his face.

The false Vetinari smiled, that same infuriating, knowing smile that Vimes was so familiar with.

“That is not my intention, Commander. Can we not be honest here, just between the two of us? Even putting aside our most recent adventure, it has been a long, _long_ time, since anger was the only thing you felt towards me.”

“ _Shut up._ You’re not him.”

“But I’ve touched his mind, and know yours even more intimately,” it replied, and touched a hand to its chin in contemplative bemusement. The cursed thing even had the mannerisms right. “Why deny yourself something that the both of you want?”

“I said shut up! What the hell is it any business of yours, anyway?!”

The mirror Vetinari tilted its head to the side, its eyes flooding black. _“He has an interesting mind,”_ the creature said simply. _“I’m curious to know the strength of the chain he has on you.”_

Then the sunrise came, a ray of light catching on the mirror, and in a flash, the wraith was gone.

Just as well, Vimes thought. He didn’t really want to punch the mirror again and cut the knuckles of his other hand.

*

_They lay there for a while, debauched and disheveled, their panting breaths mingling in the dark. Vimes collapsed forward on his elbows so as not to crush Vetinari with his full weight, before rolling onto his side._

_Vetinari himself took a few more seconds to catch his breath in full, though he suspected he might have to forego without some of his higher brain functions for several minutes more. There was a shuffling movement beside him, and then a pair of arms wrapped themselves around his waist and pulled him close._

_Vimes started to kiss him, deep and languid, with none of the urgency of before but with just as much possession. His hands roamed lazily over Vetinari’s body, which was pliant in satiety underneath his touch, stroking his chest, his waist, the curve of his arse._

_Vetinari allowed these attentions to go on for as long as he counted to ten in his head, before he placed his hand flat on Vimes’ chest and pushed him away._

_“I would not do this without the Commander present.”_

_Vimes laughed, or something with his voice did, tinged with that now familiarly sinister echo. “How did you know it wasn’t him?” it asked, even as it pulled Vetinari towards Vimes again, rubbing up against his side with insolent, indolent grace._

_“I insist,” Vetinari said, and firmly held the creature at arm’s length. “Surely an entity such as yourself knows how to follow proper etiquette.”_

_He sat up and set about a rather hopeless attempt to make himself decent once again.Dressing oneself in the dark was always troublesome [*], and that was without having dealt with the Commander’s rather vigorous attentions. He slicked back his sweat-mussed hair, brushed down the front of his robes, though there was nothing to be done about the bloodstains or his ruined collar._

_“I am not beholden to your rules, human,” the creature replied._

_“Oh, but you are,” Vetinari said as he fastened the buttons Vimes hadn’t managed to tear off. “You are a curse. You only exist because someone, somewhere, has broken them.”_

_The dark paused, sounding as if it were carefully turning Vetinari’s words over in its mind. “He invited me in. You both did.”_

_“So you are an unwelcome guest, but a guest nonetheless. And so you must follow the rules of the house.”_

_Vetinari froze, as he felt the creature suddenly slide close behind him, sitting flush against his back. Despite that he had been tracking it by all his other senses—its scent, its noise, the shudder of its movements—he was still only human, and did not see the dark in the dark._

_The Summoning Dark leaned in close, its breath hot against his neck as it whispered against his ear. It held Vetinari in its arms loosely, wrapping around him like a snare. The gleaming red sigil on Vimes’ wrist stares up at him with its solitary eye. “But you want this too,” it said._

_Vetinari allowed this to go on for only a moment, but a moment too long, and then he pulled himself free of the dark’s embrace. “That doesn’t matter,” he said. “The only thing that matters now is what he wants.”_

*

There was a standing arrangement between the Patrician and the Duchess of Ankh that, on the second Tuesday of every month, he would come visit the Ramkin House on Scoone Avenue for some afternoon tea.

This was an eminently congenial arrangement for the both of them. For the Patrician, the Duchess’ conversation was refreshingly free of artifice or politicking. Not that she didn’t have the intelligence or aptitude for it—she would have been quite a formidable player had she chosen to exercise her birthright as the scion of one of Ankh-Morpork’s most noble families, if not for the fact that the Duchess, all credit to her, was entirely disinterested in politics. For Sybil, she simply enjoyed the chance to have tea with an old friend—all credit to him, Havelock had always been remarkably less silly than all the other men of their social class, ever since they were young.

Their topics of conversation never strayed too far from the usual. One of their favorite things to talk about was, of course, the Duke of Ankh, who was completely oblivious of this arrangement despite that neither his wife nor the Patrician had ever made any attempt to conceal it. Sybil was quite happy to talk about Sam, and Vetinari was one of the few people in the city she deemed appreciated her husband sufficiently.

In testament to his promise to the Commander to continue on as if Nothing Happened, the Patrician came to the house on the second Tuesday of the month for tea with the Duchess, as he always had.

And on this particular Tuesday, as they sat among the tendrils of ivy that crept up the trellised walls of the tea garden, something was deeply occupying the Duchess’ mind. Vetinari had, if he might be permitted to say, a pretty good guess of what it could be, but regardless he merely made his customary pleasantries, accepted the cup of tea Sybil offered, and waited for her to speak. She twirled her spoon in her cup absently for several moments, lost in her thoughts.

Vetinari drank his tea in silence. Sybil replied with the small clink of metal against porcelain.

An old swamp dragon ambled across the room towards them, sleepy and toothless, its wings trailing bonelessly on the ground like a pair of flightless kites.[*] At its current pace, Vetinari anticipated its arrival at their table in perhaps half an hour.

The teaspoon stopped. Sybil took a deep breath, and set her cup on the edge of the table.

“Forgive my distraction, Havelock. There’s something I’ve been worried about for quite some time.”

Vetinari nodded. “Is it about Sam?”

“Yes. I don’t think I have to tell you, but Sam has been…different, since the kidnapping. And if anyone happened to know anything about why that is,” Sybil said, looking up and staring pointedly at him, “it should only be proper for his wife to know, wouldn’t you agree?”

Her expression was expectant, without the anger or accusation he’d been expecting to see, or was it more that he’d been hoping to see it? Depending on what she already knew, it would’ve hardly been surprising, and regardless of what she didn't, it would never be undeserved. But despite that it might already be too late for such concern, Vetinari had no wish to come between a wife and her husband. He sat back in his seat and asked, in a careful voice, “How much did Sam tell you of what happened in that dungeon?”

“Just enough. Something about the ancient entity of darkness that lives inside my husband’s head going mad, and how you risked your life and sanity to hold it back?” Sybil asked, giving him a small, wan smile.

Vetinari blinked owlishly at her. “Those were not your husband’s words, surely?”

She laughed. “His explanation involved some grumbling about what an utter bastard you are, but otherwise the sentiment is all his.”

“Well,” he replied, “it’s still a far more flattering description of the situation than I would ever give.”

“And yet, it’s true,” she said.

“The experience was not nearly as unpleasant as it sounds, and might I remind you that I was saving my own neck in the process as well?”

Sybil sighed again, sounding profoundly unsurprised. On the floor, the swamp dragon had reached its destination, shuffled at her feet, and lay a head approximately three sizes too big for its body on her lap.

“If Sam said it was the only choice you had, then it was. I believe him. My husband has always been honest with me, and I don’t see him discovering a hidden penchant for lying and sophistry now. Not with me.”

Vetinari looked down at his tea. “Perhaps he’s been spending too much time with me.”

“Havelock, don’t be difficult. You know that isn’t my concern,” she said, as she stroked the dragon’s head. The dragon yawned, and shot a baleful glance at Vetinari.

“Many would say it should be,” he said, after a pause.

“So help me understand then. Sam told me just enough to apologize for his infidelity, as if I would rather he’d have gotten hurt or worse, if only so he could remain faithful to me. I know that my husband loves me.” Sybil stopped her stroking and fixed Vetinari with a stare, and while he met her gaze, he belatedly thought that might have been a mistake on his part.

“I know you love him as well,” Sybil then said, to Vetinari’s quiet devastation. “Please tell me what I need to know.”

Vetinari did the only thing he could—he obliged her. He spoke to her of their ordeal in the dungeon, and his brush with the Summoning Dark. How he had made the choice to redirect the creature’s attention towards him, how he believed he might convert its killing intent to some other impulse, equally base but far less fatal. How, in looking at the options presented to him, he had opted for a lesser evil, because it was the one where Vimes would survive.

“It was my fault, Sybil,” he said. “For Sam, it was only the thrall of the magic that made him act as he did. He has no fault in all of this.”

“It does not have to be anyone’s fault at all,” Sybil said kindly. “Aside from the kidnappers’, anyway.”

“Nevertheless, I wish to make clear it was my choice, and mine alone.”

“And it worked? The Summoning Dark retreated?”

“I believe it was less of a retreat and more that it was…sated, at least temporarily. If I am guessing correctly from my interactions with it, the entity is curious about me.”

When Sybil turned to him with an expression of alarmed concern, Vetinari raised his hand in a placating gesture. “It inhabited me as it inhabits your husband, but it does not have a foothold on my soul the way it does with Sam. He is still its true host, and I believe there must be some residue of the magic that continues to agitate him even now.”

“So now I am worried about you, as well as Sam,” she said wryly.

“I apologise, Sybil.”

“But what are the both you planning on doing about it?”

“Nothing, as of yet,” Vetinari was forced to concede. “Though I have noticed in our recent interactions that the Summoning Dark remains active,” he said, recalling how the mark on Vimes' arm was nowadays nearly always glowing bright red during their meetings, “the Commander is…adamant, that we forget the incident in its entirety. Any offers of help from myself would not be welcome.”

Sybil crossed her arms across her chest, her expression stern. “Since when have you minded vexing my husband so, if it is for his own good?”

“In this case I believe I must respect his wishes.”

“For a notoriously observant man, you can be quite oblivious sometimes. Can you say for certain that Sam knows exactly what he wants?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sybil. Have we not already had this conversation?”

“Only because you persist in your pigheadedness. How long have I known you, Havelock?”

Vetinari tensed, his jaw tight. “Far too long, it seems, and throughout all those years, you have always been far too generous.”

“Oh, make no mistake, your lordship. I would not offer share my husband with just anyone.”

“Ideally you wouldn’t have to share him with anyone at all.”

“I swear you are nearly as bad as Sam,” she told him, with not a little exasperation. “He thinks that because he already has so much, that he isn’t allowed to want anything else.”

Vetinari, when he answered, spoke in a quiet voice. “Wanting something is not the same as needing it.”

Sybil resumed stroking the dragon in her lap, and when she replied, her voice was gentle, but firm. “I’m sorry that the circumstances were not more favourable,” she said, “but if there is something we can obtain from this wreckage, then we have a responsibility to do so. In time we might yet be able to be glad for a catalyst. Even if the circumstances did not call for it, I would still rather you not let yourself waste away with your pointless, self-imposed asceticism.”

“It’s cruel to tease, Sybil,” Vetinari said.

“I am not teasing at all, Havelock. This is not a request I make lightly. You risked your life and sanity to save Sam,” Sybil said, and then asked, despite that she must already know the answer, “Will you do it again?”

*

_Vetinari sat against the wall, the cold, hard stone against his back a sharp contrast to the man he held in his arms, emanating heat like a furnace. In his arms, in the dark, Vimes twisted restlessly in troubled half-consciousness, his hands clutching at the front of Vetinari’s robes, his face buried against the crook of his neck._

_There were hours yet to pass until their rescue. They would be found, and while the worst of the magic had abated, whatever spell the runes had cast was still running its course through Vimes like poison, like a fever, warm and faintly delirious, and all Vetinari could do was wait for it to break._

_Vimes was fighting with the dark still, and though Vetinari was certain the Commander would win eventually, just as he’s always had, he dreaded to think of what the victory would cost him—would cost them both._

_And during this struggle, occasionally one would rise to the surface, Vimes or his dark passenger. Vimes would only hold him close, as if to reassure himself that the Patrician was still alive. He’d mutter under his breath, mostly unintelligibly, though sometimes Vetinari would make out, “Not you, never you…”_

_But, Vetinari thought, if it had to be anyone…_

_Then the Commander would shudder, and the Summoning Dark would have its turn. Vetinari was always able to tell as soon as the switch occurred, when the touch would turn insidious, insistent, prying. He would restrict its hands, and it would nuzzle closely at his neck, as if to memorise his scent. Should it use the memory to hunt him down at some point in the future, well, that was a bridge to be crossed at that later time._

_“Vetinari, Vetinari,” it said, hollow and rasping, grazing teeth against his skin. “They call him your terrier, and he doesn’t mind it, not truly. If he thinks of himself as your dog, it helps him believe he is well and truly tamed. That if he lunges to bite someone, you would be there to pull the leash back and put him to heel.”_

_“You give me too much credit, and him too little,” said the Patrician._

_“You built him, did you not? Tore him down and built him back up, brick by brick, until the walls stood high enough to hold me in,” said the Summoning Dark._

_“I did,” Vetinari admitted softly. “But it turned out I was only returning the favor.”_

_It paused, and then he felt it rummage carelessly through his thoughts, his memories, his secrets. And after a moment, he felt it chance upon something interesting and_ pull _, uprooting it out of the soil, and the upturned earth it left behind smelled of lilacs._

_“How curious. Your mind is a city, nearly the same as his,” it murmured against him still, “but where his is built out of stone and night, your city is made out of light and mirrors. Yet it is the same city, the same infernal city, that the current draws you both.”_

_Before Vetinari could answer, the body in his arms shivered violently, and slumped forward. Vimes curled tightly inwards, drawing his knees up to his chest, the fight seemingly having left him, at least for now. Vetinari allowed himself to card a hand through Vimes' hair, that perhaps that piece of comfort might not be unwelcome._

_On Vimes’ arm, the sigil remained bright red, a gleaming figure in the darkness, but for the briefest moment, the sigil flashed, like an eye blinking._

 

 

* * *

* The Patrician privately thought that the Commander of the City Watch had always been rather old-fashioned in that regard. While the scorpion pits were certainly still extant and in operation, the palace dungeons have since added new attractions, most notably the introduction of the Kitten Chambers.

* Another part of Vimes thought, with a faint tinge of hysteria, at where his lordship got off hiding all that—his lordship lived on gruel and thought water was a luxury, so how the hell was he so _fit_ —

* Though Inspector A.E. Pessimal had strictly been a civilian clerk, he had been a civilian _Dark Clerk_ , and had received rigorous training in the art of Advanced Punctilio, as part of his preparation for government service.

* There were certainly a number of benefits to being able to count the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork as one of your esteemed graduates. For one thing, while his status as an alumnus was no guarantee of his allegiance, Vetinari had been more receptive than most civilian leaders were to the concerns that occupy Assassins, and easily saw things from their perspective. Of course, the Guild hadn’t _always_ seen this as a benefit, particularly back in the earlier days of Vetinari’s rule—knowing the concerns that occupied Assassins and seeing things from their perspective meant that the Patrician always certainly knew when they were concerned with inhuming _him_ , and from what angle of attack. But much like the silhouetted figure on the roof of their guildhall, the Assassins quickly caught onto which way the winds were blowing, and calibrated themselves accordingly. 

     For another thing, Vetinari was just good for business—the loss of business incurred by removing him from the registry was more than offset by the business gained from the myriad power struggles that arose beneath him, many of which had been arranged by Vetinari himself. The Assassins knew the political game better than any other guild in town—knowing who wanted to kill who and for how much was just about the most useful thing to know in city politics, with the whys being important but largely secondary concerns.

* The resulting list ended up being an eclectic mix of Modern Morpokian, High Überwaldean, and a surprising amount of Klatchian farmer’s vernacular.[†] Vetinari, as it was widely known, had studied languages in his youth.

† There was something about farming in such a sparse, unforgiving environment as the desert that inspired people in a very specific manner, in this case manifesting as an intensely colourful library of insults, if perhaps unfailingly preoccupied with goats and goat intestines.

* This was true, but significantly less true for the Patrician than most people. While this was certainly in no little part due to his superior grace, top-tier agility, and specialised training for coordinating physically challenging actions in poor to little visibility, there was also the fact that he never had to worry about accidentally wearing mismatched-coloured socks. Black went with everything, especially if everything else you wore was black.

* His name was Dribble.


	3. radiation

The main problem, Vimes thought, was novelty. For all that the Summoning Dark had existed for a millennia or so, it had only ever known hate and anger; the misery of the wronged; the all-consuming need for revenge. It had never before known _desire_ , to want something just for the sake of wanting it, like the contentment of a lungful of cigar smoke, or the dangerous siren call of alcohol.

Unfortunately, addiction was something Vimes was intimately familiar with. He knew better than most how hard it was to break, and that was when you knew it was killing you, when you _wanted_ to quit. The dark didn't have any such concerns or reservations.

So, an ancient, quasidemonic entity of pure vengeance walks into a dungeon and discovers lust. Sounded like a setup for a joke, but even though he would probably have to ask Lord Vetinari what the punchline was, exactly, he was sure it was at _his_ expense.

The second problem [*], if Vimes had to choose another, was that whatever internal compass held back the dark the first time around had no idea where to point _this_ time around. Vimes had always been afraid of what he might do, in just the right _wrong_ circumstances. He knew himself well enough to be scared of what he was capable of if pushed hard enough in a certain direction, but there had never been a part of him that relished in the pain of others. When he was angry enough to hurt, when he was far gone enough that he could kill, it had never been about the hurting or the killing. It had always been about some sense of correction, of getting _even_ , even if it meant breaking the rules. The idea that the scales ought to be balanced, because if the gods or the universe or whatever wouldn’t do their bloody jobs, then he could do it himself. Suffer not injustice indeed, but he had never wanted to hurt anyone because he enjoyed suffering itself.

So when he held back the Summoning Dark before, when he stopped himself from ripping apart those dwarves with his bare hands, the temptation had lay in the fact that they would have deserved it. But now it was just temptation, base and uncomplicated. The voice might not be strong enough to make him abandon his own moral code, but it had been strong enough to make him let go of that rope in the cave, and this felt eerily similar.

Standing at the edge of a precipice, overlooking a great city, all bright and light and crystalline sharp…

The creature had seen inside the Patrician’s mind and liked what it saw. If there was anything to definitively prove that it was evil, that had to be it, Vimes thought uncharitably.

(This was, perhaps, the third problem: mortals have always wanted what they couldn’t have, and the Summoning Dark is nothing if not a mortal invention.)

“Penny for your thoughts, Commander?”

Vimes glanced at the shop window he walked past. The dark had joined him on his nighttime patrol along Short Street, wearing Vetinari’s reflection again.

“You know, he doesn’t have nearly as much free time as you do,” Vimes said, and took a deep drag from his cigar. “It kinda ruins the illusion you’re going for here.”

The Summoning Dark smiled as it walked alongside his own reflection, hands clasped behind its back. “I merely require the illusion of authenticity. Haven’t we already talked about how the symbol is not the thing itself?”

“ _We_ never have,” Vimes replied, because it was important to not give it a single inch, “and if I had any choice in the matter, we never would.”

“Where’s your sense of philosophical adventure, Mister Vimes?” it asked with a wide and vicious smile, not seeming to mind breaking character for a bit. To the Patrician, he was the _Commander;_ _Your Grace;_ _Sir Samuel;_ _Your Excellency,_ rarely, for when his lordship was especially cross with him; or simply _Vimes_ , but even back when he was Captain of the Night Watch, a useless drunk in an impotent position, Vetinari had never called him _Mister_.

“I’ve also called you Sam _,_ if you would recall.”

Vimes would pointedly rather _not_. “ _You_ never have,” he growled.

“My dear Sam,” it said, “or would you prefer Samuel, coming from myself? I wouldn’t mind if you called me Havelock.”

He would punch the window again, but while he could certainly afford to pay for it, he’d have to cite himself for malicious damage to private property, which wasn’t a good look for the Commander of the Watch. He flicked ash petulantly in its direction instead.

Then again, mumbling to himself on patrol probably wasn’t a good look either, if he was so worried about his public image, but at least that didn’t involve any paperwork.[*]

“I put you there, you know?” said the creature with Vetinari’s voice, and Vetinari’s mouth, and Vetinari’s cold, blue eyes. “A useless drunk in an impotent position. I arranged that, because you didn’t fit in any of my plans.”

Vimes turned a corner, to a stretch of street blessedly free of any reflective surfaces.

But the trouble was he carried the dark with him, inside him.

 _He rebuilt you, when he saw how he could use you, but it doesn’t change the fact that he was the one who destroyed you in the first place,_ it whispered.

“Shut up.”

_You seek justice for others, but don’t you deserve justice as well?_

“He’s more than made up for it,” Vimes replied under his breath. “He’s given me more than I could ever want, more than I deserve.”

A strong breeze blew past him, ruffling his cloak, and doused the light of the nearest streetlamp, throwing the street into darkness.

 _Oh, but Mister Vimes,_ it said, in a crooning voice that wrapped around him like a thick, suffocating fog, _you still want so much more. He could give us so much more._

Vimes tossed his cigar to the cobbles and crushed it underfoot.

 _And he would,_ the dark promised, the echo of its voice lingering like the scent of cigar smoke.

*

_(This was a dream. He knew it was a dream, but for some reason, that mattered very little.)_

_To set the scene for the audience, an incident from out of the pages history, not fantastically remarkable, but a moment of great significance nonetheless, for both parties involved:_

_The watchman stood in front of the brightly lit watch house, a cigar in one hand and a mug of hot cocoa in the other, before a crowd of people hanging on his every word. Words which flowed easy as silk and smooth as honey—calm, collected, sensible enough to make you wonder how it was that they had to be said at all. The things he said were so practical and obvious that maybe, no, they must have been things_ you _already knew, and the man was just saying them aloud._

_The shadows, too, watched the man from the rooftops, just as mesmerised as the crowd._

_But the dark can hide many things, some of them deadly. Things that hid in the dark often were. Things that hid in the dark often had reasons for doing so._

_A crossbow bolt brushed past the watchman’s shoulder and clattered on the watch house steps. Then there was the sound of slipping tiles from the other side of the building, and a dead man fell off the roof and into the pool of light._

_The watchman’s gaze darted to the corpse, before honing in on a shadow on the rooftop opposite the watch house, not quite pitch black but more a blur of grey and dark green, a patch of colour that your eyes can't seem to focus on, no matter how hard you squint. Their eyes met, and with the disjointed logic of dreams, the crowd around them fell away like smoke, until they were the only ones left, the watchman and the assassin._

_The assassin fled, jumping across rooftops, and the watchman ran after him on the streets, glorying in the chase._

_The city flew past them in a dizzying whirl, but both of them knew the city better than they knew themselves. When the assassin made a sharp turn, hiding his advance through a maze of smokestacks, the watchman didn’t break stride, making his own detour down narrow, nameless alleys, until they both came out the other side, and the pursuit continued unbroken._

_And perhaps they could’ve chased each other like this forever, the watchman hounding after the assassin through the labyrinth of their city, never catching, never escaping. No matter how far they ran, the distance between them would remain constant, fixed, like two celestial bodies caught in the gravity of each other’s orbit, circling each other in perpetuity._

_But the dark had other plans._

_A black tendril rose out of the shadows on the ground and darted up into the air like a whip, grabbing the assassin’s ankle as he was mid-jump. His momentum stalled, he fell out of the air and crashed through the skylight of an unused distillery in a shower of broken glass._

_The assassin shook his head, disoriented, his fall broken by a pile of wooden crates. The watchman stepped forward, the shadows at his feet a writhing mass of darkness._

_“Are you here to arrest me?”_

_The scene, at this point, had changed beyond recognition, far removed from the memory it was distorted from—transformed, perhaps, into a premonition, or was it a warning? They were now both older than before the chase started, the watchman by a couple of years, the assassin by decades. Their present selves faced each other, but the thing about the past was that it was never as far behind you as you think. Still a watchman, still an assassin._

_A history written with blood kept for years and years._

_“For killing a man who was trying to kill me?” the watchman replied. At his feet the shadows seemed to grow even thicker, like the underbrush of a forest where the light couldn't penetrate the canopy. “Maybe. Nil Mortifi Sine Lvcre, right? There wasn’t a contract for him.”_

_The assassin cautiously made to stand, his eyes darting to the restless shadows on the floor. “No, there was not.”_

_The watchman blinked, before a black coil shot out and wrapped around the assassin’s neck, faster than he could move._

_“Why did you save his life?” the Summoning Dark asked._

_“As I’ve said before,” the Patrician managed to say, only a little out of breath, “I have an eye for the unique.”_

_The dark stalked forward slowly, deliberately. “What is the point of being a tyrant if you cannot even take what you want? Or have you cared too long about this city that you no longer remember what it’s like to want something for yourself?”_

_“I do the crossword every morning,” he replied._

_The dark laughed, and tightened its grip around his neck. “You want nothing for yourself, is that it? You repeat a lie for long enough, perhaps you might even believe it, your lordship.”_

_(Vetinari did not answer. He would not have answered, even if the demon hadn't been choking him, cutting off his air. More than anything, he feared what he might admit, in the confines of a dream.)_

_The shadows had spread across the whole floor, carpeting the ground like tar. Black tendrils curled up around his feet and ankles like tree roots, and up and around his arms like branches to spread them wide apart, as in a crucifixion._

_Oh, but the creature was insufferably fond of symbolism._

_“The broken heart of a young boy is no remarkable thing,” the dark continued. “Oh, but if only it could remain broken forever, because useless, broken things are easy to throw away. In fact, you could’ve sworn you’d already thrown it away a long time ago.”_

_As if in direct response to the words, the Patrician felt something coil tightly inside his chest and rise up his throat, making it even more difficult to breathe. He started to gag, his vision greying, his lungs heaving for relief. The black tendrils around his neck and limbs withdrew sharply, and he fell forward to the ground on his hands and knees, wet, wracking coughs shuddering through his gaunt frame._

_He pressed a hand up to his mouth, shaking violently, and then he was throwing up sprigs of lilac on the ground, their petals bitter and bloody on his tongue. The Patrician looked up in time to see the watchman’s face smile widely at him._

_“Instead it is still there,” the dark said, “and it breaks and breaks, and lives by breaking.”_

*

“How are your investigations progressing, Commander?”

Early afternoon light flooded through the ceiling-tall windows, a sunny winter’s day making itself at home in the Oblong Office, in impudent defiance of Vimes’ dark and stormy mood. Or at least, he must be thinking something like it. Usually the city’s weather was much more mindful of its narrative responsibilities, and so should’ve at least been overcast. A few grey clouds wouldn’t have been unreasonable.

Vimes shot a tired glare at the Patrician from where he sat across the desk. Lord Vetinari knew that Vimes knew that _he_ knew that the Watch had not made any progress on the case since they found the murdered assailants, with _found_ being quite a generous term for it. He saw the question on Vimes’ face clear as day, asking Vetinari why he was bothering to ask at all.

Probably just to piss him off, he saw the Commander’s irritated face answer its own question a second later.

But instead of voicing any of these thoughts aloud, Vimes simply rubbed his temple and said, “Inquiries are underway.”

“Has the Watch managed to identify any suspects?”

“No, sir.”

“Pity.”

Vetinari briefly considered the issue for a few moments, before shifting some papers on his desk. There was the matter of the Quirmian ambassador’s visit in a weeks’ time, last night’s double dwarficide in New Cobblers, and the most recent development plans for the Undertaking[*] that the city[*] had commissioned from the Guild of Cunning Artificers, along with more than several dozen other issues vying for their immediate attention. But today, even more than usual, Sam Vimes was…agitated.

The problem with making promises to two separate parties was that they could press upon one conflicting obligations. While his promise to Vimes to maintain that Nothing Happened had seniority, his promise to Sybil to Do Something About It had urgency on its side. He was indebted to both of them to keep his word, but since they were entirely at cross-purposes with each other, he had little choice but to exercise his best judgement as to which word he ought to keep.

That the Summoning Dark had not eased its crimson stare for the entirety of their meeting did not weigh a little on his eventual decision.

The Patrician sat back in his chair, and stared Vimes up and down over steepled fingers.

“What’s wrong, Commander?”

“Nothing, sir,” Vimes quickly shot back. The glare returned three-fold, silently yelling at Vetinari to, in no uncertain terms, _drop it, now_.

Vetinari gently took the hint and ruthlessly smothered it with a metaphorical pillow. “You have been quite restless during our meeting. I must insist.”

“What happened to our agreement, _sir_?” Vimes asked through gritted teeth. Oh, he must indeed be particularly bothered this afternoon, to bring it up of his own accord so quickly. Vetinari had been expecting clueless denials for at least thirty more seconds.

“If you would recall, Sir Samuel, the agreement holds both ways,” Vetinari answered. “I cannot be expected to keep up my end of the arrangement when the proof of it otherwise is, if you would pardon the wordplay, staring me right in the face,” he added, with a pointed glance at Vimes’ arm.

Vimes flinched, and covered the incriminating tattoo with his other hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I would also remind you that I originally advised against this course of action. I deferred the decision to yourself at the time, as you were the aggrieved party, but now I must wonder how sustainable of a decision it is.”

Vimes crossed his arms on his chest, casually hiding the sigil from sight, and stared at Vetinari with a sullen expression.

“So you’re going back on your word, is that it?”

“Politicians…lie, and I am a singularly accomplished politician,” Vetinari said apologetically. “Although I assure you that if I did not believe it urgently necessary to deal with this otherwise, I would continue to feign the ignorance I promised you.”

Vimes scoffed, turning his face away, and didn’t answer.

Vetinari leaned back on his elbow where it rested on the armrest, his chin on his knuckles. The fingers of his other hand tapped a thoughtful staccato on the opposite armrest. Sometimes it helped to make a show of contemplation—he’d been told that unrelenting, unmoving silence could be quite unnerving, and it was quite apparent that Vimes’ nerves didn’t need anymore _un_ -ing.

After a beat, the Patrician spoke in a quiet, measured voice. “If we have to reconfigure our arrangement, my original offer is still on the table.”

The chair fell back to the floor with a loud clatter as Vimes shot up to his feet. “No.”

“Can you elaborate upon your argument?”

_“No.”_

Vetinari sighed. Getting an answer out of Vimes in this mood was akin to wringing blood out of a stone.[*]

“My presence is clearly exacerbating the situation. I understand you take pride in your impressive capacity for denial, but it can only take you so far. There is being stubborn, and there is being foolish.”

Vimes bared his teeth, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. “A fool now, am I?”

“If your pride will not let you admit defeat only so you can insist on pretending _nothing happened_ ,” Vetinari said, fixing him with a stare, “what else am I to think?”

“It’s not about pride,” Vimes replied, his voice dangerously quiet. “So it bloody happened. I want to _move on_.”

“You underwent a traumatic experience, Vimes. Some things you can’t just move past.”

To his surprise, Vimes laughed, joyless and unkind. “Come now, your lordship. It wasn’t really that bad, was it?”

The Patrician regarded him coldly, equally mirthless. “Do not mistake my indulgence for license, Your Grace. If you force my hand, I _will_ make it an order.”

Vimes slammed a hand down on the desk, sending a stack of papers tumbling off the side to scatter on the floor. “If you want me out of your sight, just say so!”

“I’ve no wish to cut ties with you,” Vetinari replied in a spectacular piece of understatement, “nor any desire to break my promise, but I will not hesitate to do so if it puts your safety at risk—”

The only warning he received was a bright flare of red at the corner of his vision, before Vimes launched himself across the desk, grabbing him by the lapels of his robes. The Commander regained his senses only when he registered the sharp stiletto held just underneath his jaw.

But whatever part of Vimes’ brain had been able to put on the brakes could only do so much, it seemed. Instead of letting go immediately, he tightened his grip on the Patrician’s robes, breathing hard, his face flushed in anger.

“Still think it’s my safety you should be worrying about?” he asked, teeth gritted.

Vetinari dug the edge of his blade against Vimes’ neck. “I just warned you, Vimes. There will not be a third warning.”

But the man was farther gone than Vetinari thought. Vimes snarled, heedless of the blade against his throat, even as Vetinari pressed it in a hair deeper as a reminder of its presence, calling forth a thin line of red.

“If you mean to do something about it, now’s the time, Patrician,” he growled.

Vetinari stilled, taking in Vimes’ own wild-eyed countenance, the stark, crimson glow of the mark. How…infuriating, to have his bluff called by a man half-blind with rage. With a small sigh, he returned the stiletto up his sleeve, as though it had never been.

Yet far from defusing it, the surrender instead seemed only to turn Vimes’ anger into open dismay. His teeth still bared, his brows furrowed into deep lines on his forehead, completing an expression that was somewhere between disbelief and despair. Vimes wrapped his rough, trembling hands around Vetinari’s neck, with just the barest amount of pressure to confuse threat and tenderness.

“No, no, _no,_ ” he said, shaking his head. “Why would you just let me—after what I’ve done to you, what I can still do—”

Vetinari stood still, taking in the tranquil metronome of his own heart, the caress of those harsh calluses on his neck. Where fear ought to have been there was only fondness, and in place of caution, simply a calm resignation.

This was a fundamental flaw in the design of the leash. No matter that it can pull back the guard dog that strays too far, pull its snapping jaws away when it cannot distinguish friend from foe and bring it to heel, the danger remains for the one holding the tether, should the dog choose to turn around and bite its owner’s hand.

“What would I still refuse you, if I thought it something you would ask of me?” Vetinari replied.

Oh, how disappointed Madam would be if she were to see him now. She had always taught him never to ask questions he didn’t already know the answer to.

*

Vimes staggered back, the words having broken whatever deranged fever-spell he'd been under that made him grab Vetinari in the first place. Sharp, shooting pains ran up his forearm, up the side of his neck, drilling into the back of his skull. His heart hammered a maddening rhythm against his ribcage, like some wild beast thrashing at the bars of its cage. A writhing, twisted mass of wrath and fear and hunger, and they all wanted out, wanted _free_ , to burst through his skin, break through the thin carapace of bone and armor.

He sank down to the floor, drew his knees up, and held his head in his hands.

As if his Watch Commander hadn’t just acted with unforgivable impudence, the Patrician straightened the front of his robe, and walked around the desk to stand before Vimes.

“Vimes,” Vetinari spoke, his voice almost gentle, or at least with as much gentleness as a knife was capable of, “I cannot know if you do not tell me.”

“How is it that you can see everything but not this?” Vimes asked hoarsely. “Why do I have to say _this_ out loud, of all things, when everything else you've managed to guess just fine with your shitty, all-knowing bullshit!?”

The Patrician regards him first with surprise, then with slight contrition. “I do apologise, Vimes, for falling short of your expectations. I’m afraid I only have the appearance of omniscience,” he said. “At the risk of sounding repetitive, the symbol is not the thing itself.”

 _But symbols have power_ , Vimes thought. They have as much power over you as you would give them, as much as they can take from you.

_He would give of himself freely, he would not refuse us anything, he would give and give and give, if only you would take…!_

The question floated back to him, even as he pushed the cursed voice away. _What would I still refuse you, if I thought it something you would ask of me?_

“Would, could, should,” Vimes mumbled. “Hell of a tyrant you are, to ask me something like that.”

“I admit that it was…a miscalculation on my part. Not consciously made, I assure you. I was quite distressed by the realisation myself,” Vetinari said, with all his damnable composure.

“And what realisation would that be?” Vimes asked, even though he was sure he wouldn’t like the answer.

“Well, falling in love with you, of course.”

“Gods-fucking- _damnit_.”

“A heartening response for such a confession! If it would help, you may think of it as merely another unwanted promotion, your Grace—”

“Shut up! Why are you like this!”

“Nevertheless,” Vetinari replied, because Vimes didn’t argue with _nevertheless_.

Then, there was a sudden, palpable stillness in front of him, before Vetinari commanded, “Look at me, Vimes.”

Unable to resist a direct order, Vimes pulled his head up from his hands and met Vetinari’s eyes.

“You are dear to me. I know that it is neither asked for nor wanted. I would not burden you to know of it at all, if I had any other choice, but that is the truth of it,” he said, his expression softer than Vimes had ever seen it. “So you must understand why I cannot stand idly while the creature torments you.”

Vimes’ mouth was dry. There were a hundred things he could say to that, and a hundred more he ought to say. He could tell Vetinari to stay away. He could warn him back. He could ask for his mercy and beg him to stop whatever this was.

“If it means cutting whatever duty or obligation binds you to me, I would do so, if doing so would keep you safe.”

Panic cut through the haze of his indecision, a sudden, overwhelming terror that drowned out everything else. Vimes’ hands shot forward, clutching the folds of Vetinari’s robes tightly.

“Don’t send me away,” he said, his head turned down, eyes wide as he stared at their feet. “Please.”

“Vimes—”

“It's—it's not pride. It's selfishness,” Vimes ground out. “You’re the only thing keeping it at bay.”

Long, slender fingers grabbed his hands, but made no move to pull them off. Vimes’ grip slackened anyway, as if saying the words were taxing even his physical strength.

“I know I should keep away from you. I should stay away to keep you safe from this thing, but I can't. I can't stand to be away from you, but I can barely stand to be so close to you either. I will hurt you, I _want_ to hurt you, because this thing inside me wants to, wants to take you apart piece by piece—”

“ _Sam_.”

Vetinari’s quiet voice cut short the rest of his words. A hand came under his chin and gently turned his face up.

Vimes froze, as Vetinari put his other hand over Vimes’ eyes, so that all he could see was darkness. “Let me talk to it, Sam.”

A shudder ran up Vimes’ spine. “I can’t—” he began to protest, but Vetinari interrupted him once again with the same hand on his chin, pressing a finger against Vimes’ mouth. Robbing him of his sight, and now the tactile onslaught of those hands on his face, Vetinari seemed bent on methodically divesting Vimes of his senses, one after another.

“I will not let it hurt me. While I’ve already admitted a weakness for indulging you beyond what is sensible, you are not that creature,” he said. “It has no hold over me.”

Vimes swallowed, and asked softly, careful not to dislodge the finger on his lips, “Why do you want to talk to it?”

“I am a politician. I wish to try a diplomatic solution.”

Something coiled expectantly in his chest, winding tighter and tighter. His heart beat erratically, as if railing against its unwanted neighbour.

Vetinari had already said he wouldn’t refuse anything Vimes asked of him. If he was telling the truth…

“Can I ask for that, then? Can you promise me?”

“Yes, Sam. I promise I won’t let it hurt me,” Vetinari said. “Let me help.”

With the same feeling of dissociation, the same feeling of weightlessness as the time he let go of a rope in a cave, Vimes breathed in deeply through his nose, and exhaled.

When Vetinari pulled away the hand over Vimes’ eyes, his eyes were open and entirely black, as if shot through with ink.

With a distinct will of its own, the creature grabbed the hand on Vimes’ chin, and pressed his mouth against Vetinari’s palm. Slowly, it moved Vetinari’s hand up his face, his mouth tracing down the line of Vetinari’s wrist, before stopping on his forearm, over the spot where its mark would be on Vimes’ own.

Then, it looked up at Vetinari, its gaze searching.

“Hello, Patrician,” said the Summoning Dark. “You called for me?”

Vetinari’s face took on that wholly unreadable expression, the one he used for when he wished to obscure his thoughts from everyone, including Vimes. He pulled his hand back, and the dark let it slip from its grip. With a small flourish of his robes, Vetinari stepped away and returned to the other side of his desk, and sat on his chair.

The dark did the same, setting Vimes’ discarded chair upright to sit across from Vetinari.

The Patrician and the Summoning Dark stared at each other in silence for several moments, cold, pale eyes locked with strange black ones.

“You must’ve been watching this whole time,” Vetinari replied, all business-like, abruptly breaking their uneasy detente. “From what the Commander has said, it sounds as if you wish to have an appointment with me.”

“It’s the Commander now, is it?” the creature said, leaning back, resting an arm over the back of its chair. “What happened to _Sam_?”

“Please get to the point. I have many other appointments to make today, and I don’t wish to derail my schedule anymore than I’ve already had to.”

The Summoning Dark laughed. The tense, hard set of Vimes’ posture had been replaced by a certain artless grace, his mannerisms easier, yet more sinister somehow. It moved his limbs carelessly, as if to revel in its freedom and control.

“A city made of glass and mirrors,” it said. “A city made out of light.”

Vetinari linked his hands in front of his face. “Sounds like an inhospitable place, for such a creature as yourself.”

“I want to see it again.”

“To what end? Self-annihilation?” Vetinari asked curiously.

“Nothing so convenient, your lordship,” it replied, and pushed itself out of its chair to stand. Then, its eyes fixed on Vetinari, it walked around the desk with a slow, predatory gait.

Vimes’ body came to a stop before Vetinari, whose head was slightly tilted upwards to meet its eyes. For a second, the creature only looked at him, before it leaned forward, bringing their faces a hands’ breadth apart.

“Is to want something not reason enough?”

The dark, in the dark, like a star in chains. But in a city of eternal night, it could only ever be just another shadow. Born in the depths of the earth, lurking in the low, dark hollows of the soul, the creature had existed for millenia, knowing only places that have been forgotten by the light. Could it even exist for long in Vetinari’s head, with its brilliant mirrors, its cold, gleaming walls, or would the light burn right through it?

Curious, that’s what it was. The problem, Vimes thought, was novelty.

Vetinari met its black, piercing gaze unflinchingly.

“In that case, allow me to make a proposal.”

“What bargain would you make?”

“Merely a reconfiguration of our previous arrangement into a standing one,” Vetinari answered. “The Commander will have to sign off on it, of course.”

The creature grinned, wide and ruthless.

“You know what you risk, Patrician,” it said. “Even there, perhaps there may still be dark places, hidden and unknown, where the light cannot reach. Places where shadows like me can fester and grow.”

“I am aware,” Vetinari said, with grim finality.

_So, my gaoler, my dear friend, my brother-in-arms, did I not tell you?_

_He could give us so much more, and he would._

With a breathless gasp, Vimes wrenched back control of his body from the creature. He fell forward to one knee, managing to keep upright only by bracing a hand against the edge of the desk. He clutched at his head as the thin film of black withdrew from his vision, pulling at him with all the strength of a receding tide.

He looked up at Vetinari with clear, imploring eyes, his body shaking slightly, not unlike the fine tremble of withdrawal.

“ _No_ ,” he said, his voice still faintly laced with the menacing echo of the Summoning Dark.

“What other choice do we have?” Vetinari asked.

It was almost as if they were back in that dungeon, or perhaps they had never escaped it in the first place. “It’s too dangerous!”

“This is the compromise, Vimes.”

“The hell it is! What if it makes me try to kill you again?” he demanded, gripping the edge of the desk. “What if it transfers to you permanently? What if this just makes it all worse?”

Vetinari sat back in his chair. “The Summoning Dark still needs a body to do its bidding. An all-powerful entity of darkness, yet it cannot even cross the length of this room or pick up the head of a pin without another being to control. In a battle of wills, you’ve won against it time and time again. It cannot make you do something you don’t want to do.”

 _But I can’t trust what I want,_ Vimes wanted to say. _Why would you?_

“As to your second question, should it choose to take me as its new, permanent host, then that is your problem solved. We have already proven that my own will could keep the dark at bay. And if one day my control should prove insufficient,” Vetinari laid a hand over his breast, “there are already well-practiced contingencies in place of what to do in case a Patrician went mad. I’m sure you will carry out your duty admirably, Commander Vimes.”

At this point, Vetinari paused, but when it became clear that no reply was forthcoming beyond Vimes’ stunned expression, he continued. “Of course, all of these pale in importance to your last question, to which I would reply with a question of my own: to put it bluntly, how much worse could it get? And what choice do you have? You cannot serve the city as you are. You cannot be with your family in this state. You may find it hard to believe, but those of us who love you would rather not see you suffer.”

There were far too many conditionals at play, and they all seemed to be at Vetinari’s expense, should things turn for the worse in any scenario. In every scenario there was the possibility that Vetinari will die at his hand.

And the Patrician thought this a cheap price.

It was just Vetinari’s usual pragmatism, looking at a problem and proposing an eminently practical solution. Who else would deal with love with such cold, ruthless arithmetic? Who else could talk about love, all while proposing something so heartless?

“In any event, the Summoning Dark is not a mindless creature. It can be reasoned with. Perhaps, given time, it can be made to stand down to your previous state of benign symbiosis, once its infatuation with me passes,“ Vetinari said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Vimes wanted to scream. He laughed instead.

Vetinari raised an eyebrow in mild alarm.

“May I ask what’s so funny, Commander?”

“Just—it’s not everyday your lordship fails to account for something so completely,” Vimes said. “You’re right. You’re not an all-knowing bastard, or otherwise you wouldn’t be so certain that it’s all just the dark.”

He bent forward to put his head on Vetinari’s lap, hands holding onto the fold of his robes. “Do you really not know? Did you think that infatuation came from nothing?” he asked, his voice nearly a whisper.

“Be careful, your Grace,” he warned softly. “Lies told out of kindness can often be far more cruel than the truth.”

“Vetinari—”

“You have no obligation to reciprocate my feelings for you.”

“How can you see everything, but not this?” Vimes asked again, more desperately than before. “Or do you just don’t want to see it that badly?”

Vetinari’s hand settled on the nape of his neck. “I offer this freely, regardless of whether you feel anything for me, or nothing,” he said, giving Vimes yet another chance to turn back.

“You keep talking about obligation, as if you would never want this just for yourself,” he replied, “or as if I’d never want you in return.”

“Given the extenuating nature of these circumstances, I thought it…safer, to avoid thinking of it in those terms. You wouldn't believe a mirage if one suddenly appears before you in a desert, would you?”

Vimes leaned into his touch, batting his head against Vetinari’s hand, a dog at his master’s feet. “Well, you have to know now. Does it affect your plans at all?”

“I suspect it has the potential to upend them in their entirety,” Vetinari said, as Vimes rose up to crowd him against the chair, “but then again, you’ve always managed to surprise me—”

It was Vimes’ turn to interrupt Vetinari, but words have always been more Vetinari’s forte than his. He kissed Vetinari, his mouth unbearably soft for such a sharp tongue, for all that those words have always known how to cut him down and tear him apart.

Cut him down, tear him apart, and break him, but as Vimes deepened the kiss, his nerves singing as if he’d taken a deep drag from his cigar, he thought about how Vetinari always carefully put him back together, afterwards.

He hoped that would be the case this time too.

*

The Patrician led the Commander by the hand through the secret halls of the palace, their footsteps echoing on the cold stone as they made their way to Vetinari’s room. There, with all the curtains drawn tight over the tall windows, it might’ve been possible to believe it was sometime in the night, when they could blame the quiet or the drink or the lateness of the hour for any number of bad decisions. Such as it was, Vetinari had an impeccable internal clock, which told him it was exactly half-past three in the afternoon. Hardly the customary time for dalliances like these, but then again, he was never much of a traditionalist.

The dark was more for Vimes’ comfort than his. Customary or not, some things were easier to admit, easier to accept in the dark.

He sat on the edge of his bed, Vimes kneeling at his feet. Vetinari cupped his face in his hands, leaning down to meet his mouth in a kiss, unhurried, almost lazily, as if they had all the time in the world, as if duress played no part in this whatsoever.

 _Did you think its infatuation came from nothing?_ Vimes had asked him. Perhaps, in some other turn of events, this might have been a path they’d take eventually, entirely of their own volition. If Vetinari must regret anything, it was being robbed of the chance of ever finding out.

 _But if there is something we can obtain from the wreckage,_ he remembered Sybil say, _then we have a responsibility to do so._

Vimes gripped Vetinari’s waist, before hiking his hands up his shirt, roaming over the sensitive skin of his stomach. Vetinari grabbed a handful of Vimes’ hair in a firm, gentle grip, the other hand on the side of his neck as he pulled Vimes forward and on top of him on the bed. Blood smeared his fingertips as they graze the cut on Vimes’ neck, making Vimes break the kiss with a sharp intake of breath.

With a light touch, Vetinari traced the cut again, a fine, shallow wound. “Does it hurt?”

“Stings a bit,” Vimes said, before taking Vetinari’s hand and sucking his fingertips in his mouth. Vetinari pulled him down and kissed him again until he could no longer taste the blood on his tongue.

It was different from their frantic rutting in the dungeon—this time, it was slow and deliberate, but not easy. Vimes was taut with tightly held restraint, and wasn’t that something to keep in mind, for the next time? No point in being coy and having the metaphors remain as only just.

But for now, Vimes only had self-control to hold him back, no ropes to tie him down, no shackles to detain him. No matter, because what was Vetinari there for if not to make up for the lack?

Vetinari took the lead, guiding Vimes’ roaming hands over clasps and buttons, peeling away their clothes until they lay on top of each other, skin to bare skin, their quiet, panting breaths nearly indistinguishable in the gloom. A small vial of oil eventually found itself pressed against Vimes’ hands.[*] The Commander was rough and heavy-handed, but he took to instruction like a lifeline, slicking his cock and pressing in. Vetinari rubbed his own erection against Vimes’ hard stomach, moaning at the stretch and fullness of it.

Vimes thrust into him in deep, measured strokes, pulling out almost completely before sinking back in, flush against his arse. The back of his thigh pressed against Vimes’ broad chest, one knee hooked over his shoulder.

Slow and deliberate, but not easy. Perhaps, on a some rare day when both of them had few pressing obligations to call them away, Vetinari would tolerate this languorous intimacy, and let Vimes take him apart with tenderness and love and everything else Vetinari would rather not put a name to. A holiday, maybe. Vimes might even yet be convinced to let Sybil join them. Vetinari resolved to ask her at their next afternoon tea.

As it was, the city would not long overlook missing both its Patrician and Commander, not without the proper arrangements in place.

With his face flushed, and a nearly imperceptible hitch in his breath, he said, _“Put your back into it, Commander.”_

Vimes replied with a deep, angry groan, but he had always been so good at following orders.

One hand braced on the headboard, the other gripping the thigh resting on his chest, tight enough to bruise. Vimes fucked into him _hard_ , short, rough strokes to set a merciless pace, punching the air out of his lungs into quiet, breathless gasps with every thrust.

_“Vimes—”_

He had settled with being what Vimes needed, if not what he wanted. But leave it to the Commander to defy his expectations, after years of resigned longing. Reaching out blindly, he pulled Vimes towards him into a feverish kiss, burying his moans into Vimes’ mouth as he rode out the high of his orgasm.

Vimes took it, took everything he had to give and asked for more. Bracing himself on his elbows, he pressed open-mouthed kisses on Vetinari’s jaw, along his throat and collarbone, his thrusts turning erratic as he chased after his own completion. Vetinari dug his fingernails into the back of his shoulders, his eyes shut tight as Vimes came with a muttered curse, filling him with a searing heat, as if to imprint the presence of him inside Vetinari.

Heat, incalescent, and without light. As they lay side by side on the bed to catch their breaths, Vimes’ head buried against his neck, Vetinari felt its presence stir in his head. With a quick glance at his own wrist, he saw in red, the faintest outline of an eye with a tail.

Vetinari closed his eyes and buried his face in Vimes’ hair. That was just something he will have to live with for the foreseeable future.

 _No longer an unwelcome guest_ , he heard it whisper. It would watch him now too, with its constant, unceasing stare.

 _The arrangement goes both ways,_ he replied. _You are outside the normal boundaries of your curse._

A twitch of its tail. _But now you are vulnerable too, and can you say with any certainty that your will is as strong as his?_

Vimes mumbled something unintelligible, and shifted restlessly in his arms, tightening his embrace. Vetinari ran a soothing hand over the back of his head, shushing him wordlessly.

 _Perhaps, perhaps not. I have no guarding dark to fend you off with. But I am resourceful,_ he warned. _I look into shadows too_.

This was vice, a breach of his defenses. But men like him knew how to plan around such moral failings. It would do well for the dark not to underestimate what he would do to keep Sam Vimes, now that he has him.

 

**_(epilogue, or an assassin ties up a loose end)_ **

Lady Regina Rust slammed her copy of _The Times_ on her desk, upending a bottle of ink in her frustration. The headline story was the opening of the AMGU’s inaugural line, complete with a picture of a smiling Lord Havelock Vetinari cutting the ribbon to the Palace Station stop, alongside an irritable-looking Commander Vimes.

Her brother’s murderer and his pet, the bastards who disgraced her family name, and there they were in black-and-white, walking free. She poured herself a healthy measure of wine from the decanter and threw it back in one swallow.

She had been so close too, but dwarven mysticism had proven to be unreliable in the end. All that careful research, with nothing to show for the effort but her enemies on the front page of the paper.

Lady Rust shook her head, clearing her mind. There would be more opportunities in the future for revenge. They couldn’t trace the plot to her, since she'd already silenced everyone involved, from the well-paid thugs who stopped the carriage to the deep-downer grag she’d commissioned for the runes. She was smarter than her father and brother combined, though admittedly this was hardly any great or difficult feat.

No one would be able to find out it was her. But the dark had many eyes, and infinitely more patience.

The candlelight on her desk went out. Her glass fell to the floor, the spilt wine bleeding with the ink on the carpet. She turned slowly about the room, staring wide-eyed at the shadows.

The shadows began to shift erratically, as if disturbed, and stared back.

"Who's there?!"

After a moment, the shadows settled, placid, and a figure materialised out of the gloom, dressed in gray and dark green. Not the customary uniform of an assassin, but there was no mistaking what he was.

“Who sent you?” Lady Rust asked, her voice barely trembling with fear. These were the rules she was taught to follow.

“I come from the dark,” said the figure, the light from the window catching on his thin, silvery sword.

 

 

* * *

 * Not that Vimes was making an exhaustive list or anything, as it would take quite some time to itemise all the things that were wrong with this current situation.

* The Commander was not entirely correct in this assumption, at least for a given value of the word _paperwork_ ; if any card-carrying members of the Beggars’ Guild had seen him in his current state, Vimes would have received a stern warning from Queen Molly for Unlicensed Mumbling, scribbled on one of Constable Visit’s explanatory pamphlets—the official letterhead of the Guild, provided that it had been stained, crumpled, and spent a suitable amount of time as Ankh-Morpork street litter.

* The Ankh-Morpork Great Undertaking, or the AMGU, was the next step in the Patrician’s project for the modernisation of the city, which proposed the construction of railways underground to alleviate the congested streets above, following the recovery of the Device from the Koom Valley Incident. The AMGU would streamline the daily traffic of commerce, the transit of its burgeoning populace, expand the current city limits, and in general bring Ankh-Morpork well and truly into the Century of the Anchovy.

     There was the minor problem, of course, of how Ankh-Morpork was currently too broke to actually pay for this project, but Vetinari planned ahead. Moist von Lipwig would soon discover this, after he breaks into his own office three days from now and finds his hands full with the task of reforming the city’s outdated taxation system.

* _i.e._ , Vetinari.

* Given the continuing worship of some of the more old-fashioned deities on Cori Celesti, a necessary clarification for the purposes of this metaphor was, of course, a stone that _hadn’t_ been used in any blood sacrifices.

* This development ought to be attributed less to a certain of genre of narrativium, and more to the Patrician’s uncanny ability to plan ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> apologies for the long wait! thank you to everyone who was waiting patiently for the last chapter, and my greatest thanks to Kiran for holding my hand through this hell of a fic.
> 
> I leave you now with a quote, from stanley kunitz's _the testing-tree_ :
> 
> _In a murderous time_   
>  _the heart breaks and breaks_   
>  _and lives by breaking._   
>  _It is necessary to go_   
>  _through dark and deeper dark_   
>  _and not to turn._


End file.
